For every timeless classic, there’s a near-miss with the movie it might have been. To kick off this look into our favourite Vampire fiction in comics, TV and movies, we open the coffin and look at the history of The Lost Boys, which turns 35 this year and tell the story of how director Joel Schumacher took an idea about little kids fighting teenage Vampires and made one of the best modern horror - comedies of all time.
“Goonies go Vampire”
Richard Donner had a problem. The venerable American director had been waiting, and waiting wasn't something he did well. “If I'm on a movie too long before I get to make it, I've made it in my head so many times, I lose interest in actually making it”, he recalled years later. Not an uncommon problem among directors, the film that had Donner so wound up was a script by Janice Fischer and James Jeremias called Lost Boys. They had taken the title from J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, alluding to that book's child characters who never grow up, like the ageless Vampires of their screenplay. Jeremias was a first-time screenwriter who started out as a grip, working on Hollywood features, which was exactly what he was he was when the idea for Lost Boys (as he called it then) began to gestate. “I read Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire, which has a 200-year-old vampire trapped in the body of a 12-year-old girl. Peter Pan was one of my all-time favourite stories, so those two things started to fuse and I thought ‘What if the reason Peter Pan came out at night and never grew up and could fly was that he was a vampire?’” He enlisted his childhood friend, Janice Fischer to help him write a script that would end up reading a lot like 'Goonies Go Vampire' and so naturally felt like a good fit for the director of that 1985 film. The kids in the first draft of Lost Boys script were young, with the Frog Brothers written as rotund 8-year-old boy scouts and the vampires being older, at around 13, a far cry from the film we would end up with. “It was about that time in life before sex rears its ugly little head,” Jeremias said of his and Fischer's first draft. But as we'll see, sex would very much become part of Lost Boys...
“Is this... some little kid's vampire movie?”
Donner wanted to make the movie but couldn't make it work, nor put his finger on what exactly wasn't clicking for him. He had even brought in screenwriter Jeffery Boam for the third draft. Boam had picked up some acclaim, writing The Dead Zone for David Cronenberg, but it was too late. Donner had been offered Lethal Weapon by the studio and that was ready to go. But he wanted to stay attached to the project as a producer though, along with his wife and producing partner Lauren Schuler-Donner. It was Schuler-Donner everyone now has to thank for the modern pop classic we have, because like Geena Davis' character in Beetlejuice, Schuler-Donner kept repeating one name to her husband and Mark Canton, the head of Warner Bros., where Donner would make most of his movies: “Schumacher, Schumacher, Schumacher!” Joel Schumacher, the director Schuler-Donner was so intent on, was starting to get hot after directing St. Elmo's Fire, which Schuler -Donner had produced before marrying Donner. St. Elmo's, like the movie Lost Boys would become, featured a beautiful young cast and a brilliant design aesthetic, helped by Schumacher's own design tastes (he had been a window dresser and then a costume designer for several films). St. Elmo's had been a hit and studios had begun noticing Schumacher. At Canton's request, he met with the studio head for lunch, at which Schumacher decided a Bloody Mary was in order. Canton began telling Schumacher about the film... And things went downhill from there. Schumacher stopped Canton midway through his pitch: “Wait. Is this some... little kid's vampire movie?” he asked. “Well could you at least do me the courtesy of reading it?”, Canton replied. Schumacher realised how arrogant he sounded. “Mark, I'm sorry. It's probably the Bloody Mary”. He read the script, and like Donner, he thought it was good – but not good enough. “As I read it, I kept thinking: 'I'm never gonna do this', so I called my agent, Mark Canton, and Dick Donner to tell them all I wasn't going to do it”. But it was lunchtime in Hollywood, so Donner, Canton, and Schumacher's agent were all unavailable. Schumacher went for a run. And as he did, he started to think about the script a little more. It needed something that wasn't possible if the characters stayed the age they were in the screenplay. “Why couldn't the Vampires be teenagers? Why couldn't they look like English Gypsies and be sexy and ride motorcycles? Why couldn't the cave in the movie be this 'Death In Venice' hotel that fell into the San Andreas faultline?” So when everyone called Schumacher back, he told them he wanted to come in for a meeting. The Lost Boys was about to become a very different movie.
“My own brother a goddamn, shit-SUcking vampire!
Well, you wait till mom finds out, buddy!”
Donner moved Schumacher into his suite of offices. “ I knew we'd made the right decision the day I walked into his office and saw all these cut-outs he'd made on the bulletin board of what the costumes should be like... No way in hell would I have brought that kind of style to the picture”. Donner approved of the new tone the script was taking, mixing horror with comedy. “You can go at it two ways: You can treat it seriously and ask the audience to believe a certain reality. Or you can accept that it's that much bigger than life. And when it's that much bigger than life and you still want to relate to people, the best way to do that is with a little comedy.”
The struggle was to keep the script light enough and dark enough at the same time. Canton had concerns and he wasn't the only one, something he reminded Schumacher of daily. “He would come in and say 'The CEOs want to know if you're making a horror or a comedy?' and my reply would always be 'go back and tell them: Yes’”, said Schumacher. This did not please Canton. “Well, they don't believe those two genres work because you can make people laugh or you can scare the crap out of them, but not together!”, he told the director. “Go back and tell them to pray” was Schumacher's dismissive reply. Canton was afraid he was going to be forced to replace the director. Donner was firmly on Schumacher's side: “You gotta go by your own convictions. If they don't understand it, just wait 'till the movie comes out. You may never work again, but… you gotta go by your own convictions.” Schumacher stayed on course. “It gave the audience entertainment, so it wasn't all horror, horror, horror.”
“One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stand...
All the damn Vampires.”
Schumacher had chosen his subject matter well, too: “Look, the werewolf is not sexy. Frankenstein… not sexy. The Mummy is not sexy. The reason there have been so many Vampire movies since movies began, since silent films, and the reason they’re the most fun monster to do is that they're very, very, very sexy.” The late Edward Herrmann, who played stealth head vampire Max takes a more psychological approach: “In the post-Freudian era, the Jungian era... the shadows contain gold. You have treasures there that you need to learn about yourself.” Cory Feldman was a little more succinct: “You're not just dead, you're dead with bonuses! I think that what the script did… was put a little charisma on it.” Schumacher saw the whole Vampire myth as a metaphor for oral sex anyway: “Dracula shows up dressed in dinner clothes to suck the bodily fluids out of Victorian women. What else could it be?” The film itself is queer-coded: just look at Michael, David, and Star’s relationship: A good boy on the cusp of adulthood who’s confused about his sexuality and can’t decide between the mystery girl and the punk-rock bad boy.
“Be one of us, Michael.”
Keeping the sex in mind, Schumacher started to cast the movie. He had seen the film Solarbabies and noted young Jason Patric, an intense and handsome young actor, who starred in the film with Jami Gertz who would also appear in The Lost Boys. Schumacher began what would turn out to be a protracted negotiation process with Patric, who after Solarbabies wasn't keen to act in another exploitative genre movie. Schumacher felt The Lost Boys was anything but, having worked with Boam to whip the script into shape. Together, they had created a funny, fun, sexy take on the Vampire movie and felt Patric would be a perfect fit for the role of Michael, the eighteen-year-old who would be seduced by both Star (Gertz's half-vampire beauty) and David, the Vampire who attempts to bring Michael into the blood-sucking Brady bunch. Sadly, Patric felt otherwise. Schumacher persisted and six weeks after first approaching the actor finally signed him on to play Michael. “I really had no second choice”, Schumacher later admitted. Patrick was a highly intelligent, thoughtful actor. Even at 18 he had depth, a brooding quality, and was, as Schumacher described him, an old soul. Kiefer Sutherland, however, signed on early to play David, despite his reservations about earlier drafts of the movie. “I wasn't at the stage in my career where I could figure out if something was going to be good or not. But Joel had such a sense of style, I knew that this would be good”, Sutherland later said.
“Where you going, Star?”
Now signed on, Patric suggested Gertz for the role of Star, something that flew directly in the face of Schumacher's plan. "I saw a tiny, blonde waif with a pixie cut for Star and Jami was definitely not that." But Patric persisted, getting Schumacher to test Gertz for the role. “I'm forever grateful that he did”, Schumacher said. The blonde waif with the pixie cut was out, although that idea would soon appear in 1987's other great vampire movie, Near Dark. “I think Jason had a huge crush on Jami. I mean.. who wouldn't?” The sex appeal extended right through the older teens in the cast, like Billy Wirth. Schumacher took one look at Wirth, who unsurprisingly had had a successful modelling career before moving to films in 1985, and thought: “Put him in a motorcycle jacket, no shirt on, and he's gonna be a fabulous Lost Boy”. He was aided immensely by costume designer Susan Becker, who wisely dressed the vampire cast in clothes from decades past, as well as modern accoutrements, selling the idea that the cast was ageless.
Schumacher liked working with young actors because he felt pretending was closer to who they were. But he also had to cast adults in the film. He went to Dianne Wiest because of her compassion and her ability to make everything sound real - even if she was talking about Vampires. Besides, the director had very particular and surprising views on directing: “Directors don't create performances. People either have talent or they don't. They get the joke or they don't. They have humour or they don't.” Knowing that Schumacher was going to be directing proved to be a draw for some of the actors, such as the late Edward Herrmann, forever the parochial father figure and a good husband in countless movies. “Joel never does anything that's just standard,” he said in a retrospective documentary about the film. Schumacher was thrilled to have Herrmann play the suburban, modern vampire head. The director rounded out the cast with Alex Winter, who would later become a director in his own right, as well as one-half of Bill & Ted. And of course, he would make the most important casting decision of the film: Casting the 'Two Coreys' – Haim and Feldman, whose chemistry along with Jamison Newlander who played Alan Frog, the on-screen brother of Feldman's Edgar, would be key to a lot of the movie's fun.
“Sammy...
we're flat broke.”
The director's casting choices had one unexpected side effect. Just before filming, Canton told Schumacher his budget was getting slashed by 2 million dollars, due to the fact that he wanted a lot of unknown actors - a trade-off with the studio. “Make it with who you want, but make it for less”, Canton told Schumacher. This necessitated a rethink of some of the film's bigger elements. For a start, the Vampires would rarely be shown being Vampires, with any flying shots being left until the end of filming. This also meant less money for prosthetics, so Schumacher elected to use as little as possible until the film's big finale.
This delighted Patric, whose concerns about the script had forced Schumacher to promise him he would never be in Vampire make-up – a promise he would break by the end of filming. But all of these restrictions helped the movie. It works because it is so simple. The In-camera effects seem real - because essentially they are. The motorcycle attack on the house, for example, was accomplished by having the grips run back and forth outside the set with large lights. The movie has more charm because, apart from a couple of shots near the end of the film, it feels real, or at least as real as a film about teen vampires can be. But all of that was to come. First, they had to shoot the picture.
“How far you willing to go, Michael?”
Filming started in June 1986. Problems arose straight away. Santa Cruz officials, worried about the area being associated with missing persons and murders, even fake Vampire ones, asked the production to change the name of the town to 'Santa Carla' for the movie, which the production happily complied with as it was unlikely they'd find another boardwalk like Santa Cruz. But using a real place where they couldn’t restrict the public would cause problems when it came to the huge concert scene, where Michael first meets Star. The scene featured a shirtless Tim Cappello, performing the song I Still Believe and blasting away on his, er, Saxophone. With the entire location already stinking of pot, cinematographer Michael Chapman had to push Cappello's fans off the stage when they rushed it over and over again, ruining his shot. Meanwhile, Schumacher had to push the Frog Brothers: “You're G.I. Joe's! You're Marines! And you have no humour about any of this.” As the director recounted a few years later: “Look, they don't think they're funny. They think it's all real”. One actor who didn't need pushing was Kiefer Sutherland. “Kiefer was so confident. He has the least amount of dialogue of any character in the film, but he was so magnetic”.
This confidence went awry during the film's motorcycle race sequence along the beach. Sutherland was already an experienced, avid motorcyclist, and did his own biking. But on the very first night of shooting, Sutherland had lost control of his dirt bike, largely because he was showing off in front of a girl that caught his eye. He broke his left wrist. Schumacher put him in black gloves for the rest of the shoot. Occasionally, the film went to the stages, such as for the train track scene, which was done entirely on the stage – yet remains one of the movie's most atmospheric moments. In fact, it was this scene that made Schumacher sign on to the film, as he'd never seen anything like it in any other movie.
“Burn rubber does not mean 'Warp Speed'!”
The tightness of the budget began to affect all departments. Schumacher actually forgot to shoot the scene where the Vampires prepare to attack the house in the final sequence and so had to make do by reversing an earlier shot. “Film is so elastic and plastic, you can do anything." Even though he admits editor Bob Brown had to make chicken salad out of chicken shit at times, such as using offcuts from Top Gun for some flying sequences. The younger members of the cast loved Schumacher. Jamison Newlander (Alan Frog), remembers: “Joel made it like summer camp. I'd never worked that closely with a director before. It was like his theory of directing - keeping it fun”. “Every morning”, said the late Cory Haim, “ He would be like 'My Dudes!'”
But they were nearing the end of shooting and tempers frayed a little, even amongst the Corey's and Schumacher. “The Corey's stopped talking to me for 24 hours when they discovered they wouldn't be doing the car almost driving off the cliff stunt”, Schumacher remembered fondly. “Big J got locked out of the box that day!” Tempers also frayed between Schumacher and Patric as the day finally arrived when Patric would have to wear his Vampire makeup. He quit and called his manager, claiming Schumacher had lied to him. Eventually, Warner Bros. stepped in, strongly suggesting Patric return to work. He did, relieving Schumacher, who was very much against reshooting any scene Patric had appeared in, especially his scenes with Haim. “I felt the scene where Sam discovers is a Vampire was the heart of the film's entire tone, largely because of the actors’ performances.”
“Talk about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre…”
It's worth mentioning the sets for the family house, designed by Bo Welch are full of rustic, natural sculpture that was meant to make you uneasy and appear sinister. Welch and cinematographer Chapman (who had shot Taxi Driver and other classics), made the film look unique. But not so unique that the audience couldn't relate to it. “The film's visual style would have been exotic had it not been for the advent of MTV a few years earlier”, said Schumacher. The music-video channel influenced the film, right down to Sam's queer-coded costumes and love for fashion. The film's design and photography excellence were particularly in evidence during the horrific and exciting Surf Nazis Beach scene, where we see the Lost Boys in their full, Vampiric glory, with the lighting used to maximum effect. The scene was choreographed to Run DMC's version of Walk This Way. It's a brilliant scene, mixing the film's innate horror with just a dash of comedy. My beach, My Wave was the surf-nazi motto. Perhaps Lost Boys was staking out its own wave in the world of '80s cinema. Schumacher, his actors, and crew had created a wholly original Vampire film. “Just look at the scene where the Frogs and Sam enter the cave, only to discover it's one giant coffin.” Even small details, like Vampires always being in coffins, were given a fresh coat of paint.
“Death by stereo!”
Schumacher tinkered with the film right up until the last minute, adding more shots to the death by stereo scene because the audience was laughing so hard at the dialogue before they missed Haim's big line. Speaking of lines, Schumacher was worried about the movie's final moment: “When you get a script, they don't always have a great last line. I'm forever grateful to the great actor Barnard Hughes, who tossed away the famous last line of the movie with such panache, it gave me a great moment to end on.” The film was done. Editing could begin, then it was just up to the marketing department at WB and of course, the audience, to seal the film's fate. The first test screening was like a rock concert. Schumacher would never forget it. “There were 750 people in line when I got there. The surf punks in the audience got so excited, they tore up the seats in the first show!” After that, the executives never gave Schumacher any trouble. He was proud of the film and the work he and Jeffery Boam had done in the script's early days. Many of Jeffrey Boam's additions are now favourite scenes including the initiation scene in the cave, where Michael is convinced he's eating worms and maggots. Boam also came up with the conceit that Max wanted Lucy as a mother to his way wayward boys, giving reasoning to the whole film. Reflecting on the film years later, Michael Chapman praised Schumacher. “I think this is the most personal and heartfelt of all Joel's movies.” Lost Boys opened a lot of doors for the director, allowing him to go on to make Flatliners, Phone Booth, Tigerland, and many others. The film performed modestly on its release but gained a huge following on home video, where I first saw it aged 12. It was definitely not a kid's movie. And that made it all the more fun to watch. But then it is fun to be a vampire. Lost Boys is a film that slept all through its initial release, partied all night through its Home Video release, never grew old, and never ever died.
The Lost Boys is available in a new 4K edition from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.