Thread by @ATRightMovies

THE LOST BOYS was released 37 years ago today. A reinvention of the vampire genre, and an 80s cult classic, the behind the scenes story will have you cursing all the damn vampires…

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In the 1980s, writer James Jeremias read Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire, featuring a 200 year old in the body of a 12 year old girl. A fan of JM Barrie’s Peter Pan, Jeremias thought ‘what if the reason Peter could fly and came out at night was that he’s a vampire?’

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Jeremias and his writing partner, Janice Fischer, fleshed the idea out into a screenplay they called The Lost Boys (another Peter Pan reference). Warner Bros were interested and the first-time writers sold their script for $400,000.

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Like Barrie’s Lost Boys, the ones in Jeremias and Fischer’s script were about 12 years old and had names like Peter, Michael, John, and Wendy. As such, Richard Donner – who had just had a smash hit in The Goonies – was brought in to direct.

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Donner left to make Lethal Weapon and music video director Mary Lambert was brought in, but left quickly due to creative differences. Joel Schumacher was approached and later said he accepted because “Vampires are hot - the only erotic monsters. Frankenstein is not hot."

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However, Schumacher was not a fan of the script. He said he would direct the film on condition that Jeffrey Boam was brought in to rewrite the screenplay under his supervision. WB agreed, and Boam renamed the characters and aged them to be around 17 years old.

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In casting the lead of Michael, Schumacher offered the part to Jason Patric. Patric wasn’t interested in a vampire film and said no. Schumacher said he met with Patric almost every day for 6 weeks and promised lots of creative freedom before he accepted.

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The antagonist was vampire David. Some future stars auditioned. Jim Carrey was one, and later Ben Stiller said at the Hollywood Life Young Hollywood Awards “Last time I saw a room of so many talented faces was when I auditioned The Lost Boys… It was between me and Kiefer.”

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‘Kiefer’ was Kiefer Sutherland. He was initially reluctant but auditioned when he heard INXS were on the soundtrack. He won the part, and Schumacher said “He’s a born character actor…He has the least amount of dialogue in the movie, but his presence is extraordinary.”

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Sutherland does have the least dialogue of all the major characters. He was only 17 at the time but had told the producers he was a year older. All through production he was worried about being found out.

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Corey Haim is Michael’s younger brother, Sam. He reportedly played music on set between takes and bonded with the other acting Corey – Feldman. They went on to appear in 9 movies together and had their own TV show, The Two Coreys.

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At the time, Feldman reportedly had some drug issues. He showed up to set one day one a comedown and was fired by Schumacher. He came back next day, apologised and swore it wouldn’t happen again. Schumacher re-hired him and Feldman was true to his word.

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Schumacher wanted Feldman’s character, Edgar, to resemble the big action stars of the day, so told him to rent Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris films. If you take note of Feldman’s delivery, there is a clear Stallone influence in there.

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Lucy was named to reflect Lucy Westenra – an early victim in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Schumacher’s choice to play Lucy was Dianne Wiest. She’d just won an Oscar for Hannah And Her Sisters, so Schumacher was surprised and delighted when she said yes.

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Schumacher imagined Star as a “waifish blonde.” However, Patric recommend Jami Gertz, his co-star in Solarbabies, and Schumacher was impressed. Star is the only vampire (she’s a half vampire) who we never see in full vampire form.

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There are famous literary references beyond Peter Pan. The Frog brothers – Edgar and Alan - are a reference to Edgar Allan Poe, the legendary macabre American writer.

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The setting of Santa Carla is taken from Santa Cruz. And its reputation as the “Murder Capital of the World” is based on real life. Between 1970 and 1973, John Linley Frazier, Herbert Mullin and Edmund Kemper murdered 28 people in Santa Cruz.

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There was an inventive use of special effects. Corey Haim said that all the blood had glitter in it to give it a shimmering effect and was "slimier than other fake blood."

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The theme song Cry Little Sister became a hit, peaking at 15 in the Billboard 200. Gerard McMahon wrote the song after reading the script, but hadn’t actually seen the film.

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The vampire prosthetics were handled by Greg Cannom. He took inspiration from an odd source: "I had a newspaper clipping of a blonde tennis player… it was faded to the point where it had those kinds of shapes on the forehead and bumps on the cheeks and everything."

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Cannom designed custom vampire dentures for each actor to wear. Schumacher wanted them to be understated compared to Dracula so Cannom "tried to make the teeth look like pearls."

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The opening is the very 80s beach concert. The saxophonist was Tim Cappello, and played in Tina Turner’s band. He said any cuts in filming he spent frantically doing pushups to look as good as possible on screen.

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The soundtrack to The Lost Boys played a part in the success of the movie. In order to guarantee INXS’s involvement, Schumacher agreed to direct the video for Devil Inside the following year.

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Schumacher said the scene where Dwayne (Billy Wirth) is electrocuted by the stereo took two weeks to film. All the more remarkable when filming began on 2 June 1986 and ended on 23 June 1986 – just 21 days of filming.

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After a minor accident when riding his motorbike, Sutherland broke his wrist and had to wear a cast. As such, the costume team fitted him with gloves to hide the injury on the screen.

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The Atlantis Fantasyworld comic book store was owned by Joe Ferrara II, who has a cameo – he’s seen playing pinball in the shop. The comic we see – Vampires Everywhere – was signed by the cast and Ferrara still has it in his shop for visitors to see.

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Sutherland said the scene when the vampires kill a biker gang was a lot gorier originally. “It was so violent I couldn’t believe we were doing it. I ate the back of a man’s head off and blood went everywhere. I was directed to smile like a child having cake.”

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The posters in the film have meaning:
- Sam has a pic of Echo & The Bunnymen, who sang People Are Strange for the movie.
- The vampire cave has The Doors. They sang the original version.
- In Sam’s closet we see Rob Lowe. Schumacher had just directed him in St Elmo’s Fire.

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The aerial vampire POV shots are among the film’s highlights. Schumacher later said WB slashed the budget by $2m just before production. These shots were done because they were cheaper, and some b-roll footage from Top Gun was repurposed, too.

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Filming the Chinese food maggots scene wasn’t easy. As the production found out, maggots don’t move much without motivation. So, between takes, they doused them in lemon juice. This made them squirm for the next shot.

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In the dinner between Max (Edward Herrmann) and the Frogs, Alan puts out candles with his fingers. Nobody told Jamison Newlander to wet his fingers first, so he burned himself and ruined the take.

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Newlander was also hurt in the scene where Paul (Brooke McCarter) grabs Alan by the shirt. He took a clump of Newlander’s chest hair and he later said “The pain you see on my face is actually quite real."

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David meets his end when he’s impaled on deer antlers. He doesn’t disintegrate like the other vampires, telling us he’s not actually dead (or undead). The idea was he would make a comeback in the planned sequel The Lost Girls. It was written but never filmed.

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The movie didn't originally end on the “All the damn vampires” joke. In the script, we cut to the Lost Boys regrouping in the sunken hotel. The last shot was of a wall mural, made in the early 1900s, with Max in it - looking exactly the same as he still does.

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With its adult teen take, The Lost Boys breathed new life into the vampire movie, and created its own popular sub-genre. Without it, it’s unlikely we would have had the likes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, The Craft, The Vampire Diaries or Twilight.

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On a small budget of $8.5m, The Lost Boys grossed $32.2m so was a huge success. And, to this day, every year at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk The Lost Boys is screened as part of the park's summer movie series.

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