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Lexmark3200
07-07-2005, 02:49 PM
I absolutely fell in love with this campy vamipire film after seeing it in a drive-in theater while on vacation in California the year it came out; since that time, I have had it on countless versions of VHS, taped off cable, that looked horrible and washed out compared to this awesome remastered version of the DVD Warner has put out. The Lost Boys is to vampire films, TO ME, what Return of the Living Dead is to zombie films; satire and comedy but creating a final product that I liked better than the more serious takes on vampire and zombie films, believe it or not.

The Lost Boys has become an underground cult classic that Warner deemed "classic enough" to put a two-disc Special Edition effort for the title forward after the bare-bones single disc original pressing of the DVD has been floating around the market for quite awhile; but this old version cant hold a candle to this new one, packed with extras and an all-new beautiful looking digitally remastered widescreen transfer. But I'll get to that later.

Helmed by Joel Schumacher, The Lost Boys tells the story of a recently divorced woman (Dianne Wiest) and her two sons (Corey Haim in a really ***got-induced role; what is UP with this clothes in this film --- the shirts that fall off his shoulder --- and the posters of MEN posing on his bedroom walls?) and Jason Patric, who move from Arizona to Santa Carla, California, to live with Wiest's father on a rather large piece of land he owns with horses, almost ranch-style. What the two boys, and their mother, are unaware of, is that Santa Carla is "the murder capital of the world," and is teeming with punk-rocker teenager vampires. After falling for Jamie Gertz at an outdoor concert on the pier in Santa Carla, Patric learns that she really "belongs" to Keiffer Sutherland, the leader of a punk-rock-ish motorcycle gang. After Sutherland and his gang befriend Patric, he ends up drinking what he thinks is red wine in the gang's cave hideout, but is actually Sutherland's vampire blood.....making Patric a vampire himself.

As the days pass, Patric realizes his new powers --- that of levitation and self-healing after Haim's dog viciously attacks him and bites his hand while protecting Haim from the vampire-turning Patric. In perhaps the film's most greusome scene, Sutherland and his gang take Patric to a site where punk rockers are partying around a campfire to Aerosmith/Run-DMC's "Walk This Way" and hide in the trees.....and thats when Sutherland hits Patric with the news, saying to him "Initiation's over, Michael......time to join the club....." as he looks at Patric with glowing yellow eyes, fangs for teeth and long, claw-like fingers and toes.....he is a vampire! And Patric, looking around, notices the other demonically laughing members of Sutherland's gang have also turned into full blown flesh eaters, as they all fly out of the trees and attack the group of partying punk rockers, ripping open their skulls and biting their brains, and all kinds of great, gory stuff, all while Patric tries not to look and tries to resist the power of vampire growing inside him. After the "feeding frenzy," Sutherland and his gang circle around Patric, who has fallen out of the tree they were hiding in onto the sand below, and says "So.....now you know what WE are....now you know what YOU are.....you'll never grow old Michael and you'll never die....but you must feed....."

In the meantime, Haim has made "friends" with two local kids from a comic book stand on the pier (one of which is Corey Feldman) who claim to be vampire hunters and warn him that Santa Carla is crawling with vampires --- Haim doesnt want to listen until he realizes his own brother is one. The only way, "The Frog Brothers" (as Feldman and his partner are known) claim, to turn his brother back to human is to find and kill the head vampire, who they think is the guy dating Wiest --- a local video store owner. After failing a test they set up to prove he is the head vampire at dinner one night over Wiest's father's house, the boys are stuck wondering who the head vampire is.....but it turns out they were right. As Feldman, Haim and the other "Frog Brother" along with Patric and Gertz go to the cave hideout where Sutherland and his gang are sleeping during the day, the group decide to try and stake all the vampires in the gang because they dont know which one is the lead --- this goes horribly wrong as they end up killing one vampire in Sutherland's crew, but barely escaping the cave alive when Sutherland goes after them, with the power of the sunlight that burned Sutherland's hand outside the cave the only thing that saved their asses.

Of course, that night, Sutherland and his gang look for revenge once the sun goes down, but Haim and his vampire fighting buddies are preparing with bathtubs full of holy water, garlic and sharp objects to drive into the hearts of the attacking vamps. And sure as ****, they do attack that night --- Sutherland going right for Patric in a hand to hand vampire conflict after Patric completely turns 100 percent vampire with glowing yellow eyes and all. Haim and the Frog Brothers end up throwing some holy water on another of the vampires in the gang, killing him, and Haim ends up putting an arrow right through the heart of another vampire gang member. This leaves Patric and Sutherland duking it out for who is the stronger vampire at the end; when Sutherland has Patric pinned up near some very sharp objects Wiest's father collects, he seeths at him "Stop fighting me Michael....I dont want to kill you.....join us...." and Patric says "NEVER!" and Sutherland hisses back "It's too late.....my blood is in your veins...." as Patric yells "SO IS MINE" and takes Sutherland's body and sends it hurtling onto two sharp bulls horns that are sticking up. Sutherland dies, but Patric and Gertz, also a vampire, feel no different --- so the real head vampire is still out there somewhere.

When Wiest and her new boyfriend from the video store come home from a date and see the chaos in the house, it is then revealed that indeed "Max," the guy Wiest has been working for and dating, is the head vampire as he transforms right there in front of them and tells Wiest it was HER he was after all along --- he wanted his "family" --- Sutherland and his gang --- and HER family --- once all becoming vampires --- to live together as some kind of "blood sucking Brady Bunch" as Feldman calls it in the film. Just seconds before "Max" is about to bite Wiest's neck to make her a vampire too, Wiest's father drives his truck right through the living room wall, while Patric pushes "Max" towards some sharp objects coming at him and ultimately into him, impaling him into the fireplace and into a ball of fire. It's a cool ending to a really, really cool vampire film.

Warner Brothers, in their typical "Special Edition" treatment style, has done to The Lost Boys what they have done to other recent Special Edition releases, such as Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas, that is, taken the exact same artwork from the original, snapper case package and dropped it onto a new two-disc keepcase package, and have also remastered the video transfer BUT carried over the same Dolby Digital 5.1 audio from the previous version --- Warner Brothers is INFAMOUS for doing this, and they even did it on their recent release of Heat - Two Disc Special Edition (stand by for a review from me on that title, as well) although that packaging was a lot nicer than what we got with The Lost Boys and Goodfellas, with Heat getting a nice, shimmering slipcase over the DVD keepcase box.

VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS:
ALL-NEW DIGITAL TRANSFER; "DUAL LAYER WIDESCREEN VERSION PRESENTED IN A "LETTERBOX" FORMAT PRESERVING THE "SCOPE" ASPECT RATIO OF ITS ORIGINAL THEATRICAL EXHIBITION, ENHANCED FOR WIDESCREEN TVs"

Again, this is Warner Brothers we're talking about here, so they refuse to label any kind of aspect ratio for this film on the rear of the box; there was indeed letterboxing on my display, indicating this was either a 2:35:1 or 2:40:1 transfer, but either way, this digitally remastered transfer for The Lost Boys looks fantastic, and the film never looked better. Forget those rented VHS copies you were probably hooked on with regard to this film and which you (if you were a fan) rented multiple times; this new DVD transfer of this campy little classic vampire tale never looked better on the big screen. I couldnt really detect any problems with the transfer, in terms of noise, grain, pixelation, haloing, edge enhancement, hairs or scratches.....to my eye, at least, this is the best Schumacher's The Lost Boys has ever looked, or will ever look, until High Def comes around.

AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS:
ENGLISH DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1, FRENCH DOLBY DIGITAL STEREO, SUBTITLES IN ENGLISH, FRENCH & SPANISH, COMMENTARY ON DISC 1 WITH DIRECTOR JOEL SCHUMACHER

While The Lost Boys received a fresh video transfer, this seems to be the same carryover Dolby 5.1 audio track from the previous DVD; it's not bad per se, but it is by no means thunderous. There is a distinct lack of LFE on the track, and everything seems to be front-focused with very little surround ambience. Aside from also sounding a slight bit "dated", the track is missing some "ooooomph" and dynamic power, so you're gonna need to turn your processor or receiver up a bit to get this soundtrack warmed up. There are slight moments of surround usage, such as score support for the awesome "Cry Little Sister" song that repeats through the film, plus some other rare moments such as when birds fly throughout Sutherland's hideout cave; but these are rare moments, as I said.....it seems the entire effort is front-focused and could have used some remastering work.

DISC 2 really shines for fans of this film, as there are pretty cool interviews and behind the scenes look at the making of this vampire camp classic; the interviews with Haim are especially hilarious because you are going to look at him and say "Wow....what the **** happened to HIM?" And, when watching the extras and interviews, ask yourself this question as well (because I did): is Joel Schumacher a little "light in the loafers" himself, and this was suggested in Haim's outrageously ***gotty character?

The extras on DISC 2 include:

-Additional Scenes
-The Lost Boys: A Retrospective Documentary
-The Return of Sam and The Frog Brothers: The 2 Coreys and Jamison Newlander
-Multiangle Video Commentary
-Vamping Out: The Undead Creations of Greg Cannom
-Inside the Vampire's Cave: 4 Featurettes
-Plus: The Vampire's Photo Gallery, Lost in the Shadows Music Video, a World of Vampires Interactive Map and More