Monday, March 29, 2010

The Lost Boys (a very short story)

For years I'd a theory about the film The Lost Boys (1987), that vehicle for Corey heart-throbs Haim and Feldman. Which was the one born in 1972, the same year as the death of modernism? It doesn’t matter, off to that last premiere in the sky. Forget the kick-ass soundtrack, forget the coloured lights, forget Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland in leather, fangs and spiked hair, flying over the beach. It was the grandfather, played rugged, warm and soft-hearted by Bernard Hughes. The one who crashed through at the end, pushing two stakes that would kill the head vampire, turning the tables and saving the narrative. Did anyone catch it? The bottles of thick dark liquid, his “root beer” that no one allowed, his unexplained absence through most of the film, his collection of taxidermy? Even the fact that his daughter thought him dead at the offset, when their lost car arrived, the old man lying prone on day-lit porch. How else could you explain any of this, but for the fact he a vampire too? The two Coreys were just so much smokescreen. Even the grandfather’s last line, “all the damned vampires.” It wasn’t that the town had vampires at all, but citing foul excess. Was he one of the saved, or was he including himself?

2 comments:

Kevin Killian said...

Wow, never thought of that! Do you watch True Blood? They've got a blood substitute, marketed like root beer, that keeps the blood hungry artificially sated and ordinary humans safe.

Have to watch Lost Boys again! For many reasons.

Anonymous said...

Cool! I also like The Lost Boys. It's a great movie, and it's very inspiring.