There are two movie monsters that have proven to be successful time and time again as Michael Kennedy of Screenrant alludes to, and those are zombies, and vampires. Zombies have been a huge hit ever since Night of the Living Dead first came around while vampires have been popular even longer thanks to the different ways in which they’ve been portrayed. There’s only so many ways to depict a rotting corpse that feeds on flesh, but the state of vampires in pop culture have seen them go from murderous bloodsucking fiends to angsty teens that are hesitant about turning a human due to truce with a clan of yet another band of movie monsters, werewolves. But among the movie monsters vampires could be called elite since they’ve adapted far better than many other monsters have throughout the years. Perhaps it’s due to their ability to blend in with humans so much easier or something else that makes them more appealing, but the simple fact is that they’ve been more widely accepted than anything else. Unfortunately this doesn’t mean that every show or movie is seen as being just as adaptable since the CW still hasn’t pulled the trigger on The Lost Boys as they first attempted to do in 2016.
It doesn’t sound that long ago but with the current rate of how things change in pop culture only four years back is a lifetime since the CW has seen shows come and go in that span and has done what it could with many of them while The Lost Boys has kind of lingered on the fringes, waiting for the final approval but never getting it. The series has been pitched a few times now and a couple of pilots have even been run in order to show just how the progression of the program would take place, but at this point there’s nothing for it since the final word to give the green light hasn’t come yet. There are those that might think this is a good thing since the cult classic has been left alone for so long that it might be better off just being left as it is. The movie did spawn two sequels that were nowhere near as popular and brought Corey Feldman back as Edgar Frog as the main character. Unfortunately neither sequel really did much for the fan base as the original was still considered to be the best. But making it into a movie has sounded like a bad idea since the concept was first brought to light. Kirsten Howard from Den of Geek has more to offer on this subject.
Whatever creative differences and roadblocks are being thrown up aren’t necessarily a bad thing since this movie was pretty straightforward and despite any and all questions that could be asked it was a fitting beginning and end to a tale that was fairly open-ended since by the time the credits roll the audience found out that David and his bunch weren’t the only vampires in town. This did leave the fate of the main characters kind of uncertain, but that was taken care of during the post credits of one of the sequels when Edgar was seen sitting under a lone streetlamp staring off into the darkness before he told whoever was messing with him to stop playing and come out. That prompted Sam, played once again by Corey Haim prior to his passing, to step into the light and begin a short discussion with Edgar. At the end of this they rushed each other and the assumption is that Edgar prevailed given that there was another movie that came after, and his memories of Sam haunted him just a bit. But the main movie, the one that started it off, feels as though it might be a little discredited if it was portrayed in another manner, even if it wouldn’t be flat out ruined. There’s nothing really sacrosanct about it, The Lost Boys was kind of a campy horror movie that was a product of its time and worked beautifully in the way it was used, but bringing it back now would make it feel too much like another version of The Vampire Diaries or something similar since this is what the CW does with such stories, it romanticizes them in the same way that so many other vampire projects have done throughout the years.
The saving grace of this movie is that it wan’t overly dramatic, it was silly, funny, and still scary and gory enough to be convincing and altogether entertaining given that it wasn’t trying to be anything it wasn’t. This is the kind of vampire movie one watches when they’re tired of the teenage angst and the hauntingly romantic way that vampires dominate others and draw them into their confidence. If you want straight up bloodsucking gore, this was the movie to watch. Unfortunately it doesn’t feel as though this will translate that well to TV.
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