THE LOST BOYS (1987)
Label: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 97 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 2160p UHD Widescreen (2.40:1)
Director: Joel Schumacher
Cast. Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric, Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, Jami Gertz, Edward Herrmann, Barnard Hughes, Dianne Wiest, Jamison Newlander, Alex Winter
Synopsis: When their parents’ divorce, Michael (Jason Patric, The Beast) and Sam Emerson (Corey Haim, Silver Bullet) move with their mother to their grandfather’s house in a California town nicknamed, “The Murder Capital of the World.” Soon after arriving, Michael gets involved with a hell-raising motorcycle gang of vampires with a charismatic leader (Kiefer Sutherland, Flatliners). When Sam becomes involved with the Frog Brothers (Corey Feldman (The 'Burbs) and Jamison Newlander), who confess to being undercover Vampire hunters, he realizes it’s up to them to save Michael and the rest of the town from the vampire gang.
This will not be a review so much as a memory infused remembrance of the first time I watched The Lost Boys, a movie I have always loved since I first saw it. It's not a movie I saw at the theater, at least not in it's initial run, but one I saw on cable TV the night of August 8th 1988, not at my house or a friends, but at the house of a total stranger at the invite of a girl I barely new who was babysitting a couple of kids while there parents were at a Guns N Roses and Aerosmith concert in Weedsport, NY, which is how I remember the exact date. At the time I was barely fifteen, I had met this lovely girl named Gina P. at Sunday school a few years earlier, we use to flirt and play footsie under the table during bible study. We lost touch pretty quickly because she attended a different middle school than me and I stopped going to Sunday school, which I only ever attended because a lot of the kids on my street did and I was bored so I would tag along. A few years later during my freshman year of highschool I ran into her at a basketball game as her school was playing ours, and we recognized each other and briefly caught up in passing in the hallway. A few weeks later I was just walking around the small village where I lived, Ovid, NY, probably on my way to pump quarters into the Galaga video game at the sub shop on main street, when quite by surprise I ran into her on the street right around the corner from my house. She said she was babysitting these kids nearby and I should come by and watch TV with her later after the parents left, and that's what I did. I arrived just before sunset and we hung out with and played with the kids until she put the kiddos to bed, then we sat in the living room to watch The Lost Boys on HBO or CInemax. I was transfixed by the movie, it had humor, there were vampires that looked like rockers, the soundtrack was rockin', the special effects were cool, and it starred Corey Feldman whom I was already a fan of from Gremlins, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, and The 'Burbs - there
was just nothing not to love about it. Anyway, back to Gina; we had been holding hands and during the movie, rubbing each others pant legs, and then we started making out on the couch before moving to the floor and doing the whole dry-humping thing. I was a pretty awkward fifteen year-old, still very much a virgin, but I'd made out a few times with some young ladies who were kind enough to mutually indulge me, but I had not yet had a steady girlfriend. I remember thinking while we were rubbing up against each other that "this might be the night", and at a certain point I was on top of her and we were grinding away while swapping spit and I unbuttoned her pants and started to slide her jeans zipper down. At that point she rather quickly halted everything and said "what are you doing?". In all honestly I had no idea what the Hell I was doing, and I probably told her that, I was horny teenage autopilot and just doing what my hormones told me to. So, that was pretty much the end of the night, she said that the parents of the kids would be home soon, so we gathered ourselves and said our goodbyes and I went home with a new sensation welling up inside by groin, something called epididymal hypertension, aka blue-balls, which up to that point I had only heard about from older teenagers who had warned me about it as well as telling me what the only remedy was in the absence of sex. Anyway, that's how I first saw The Lost Boys, it goes along with a quite pleasant memory of teenage lust and sexual discovery, and it holds a special place in my heart, not just because of the memorable night but because it's a fucking kick-ass vampire flick! Sadly, I never did run into Gina again, that was the last time I ever saw her, but the memory of that night and the movie we watched lives on.
Screenshot Comparison of the
2008 Blu-ray vs 2022 Blu-ray
Audio/Video: The Lost Boys (1987) arrives on 4K UHD from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment in 2160p UHD widescreen (2.35:1). The film looks pretty terrific in Ultra HD with HDR, this is not a film that ever looked great on DVD or Blu-ray, it's always been a bit flat and slightly murky. That changes with this new brand new UHD, with the new wider color spectrum HDR color-grading the primaries are revived and refreshed, color saturation is deep and satisfyingly, and the shadows are deeper and darker, but also having excellent shadow detail. Grain is well resolved throughout with some terrific fine detail in the close-ups of hair, facial features, vampire eyes and clothing textures. Depth and clarity are also greatly improved, it looks more filmic than I've ever seen it before, right from the opening scenes on the carousel I was impressed, you could immediately tell how much of an upgrade it was
Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with optional English subtitles. No Atmos upgrade but this is still a terrific sounding uncompressed track that that really highlight not only the Thomas Newman (WALL*E) score but the songs from Lou Gramm, Roger Daltrey, Jimmy Barnes and INXS and Echo & the Bunnymen. This was a soundtrack with a lot of covers songs, pretty sure it was Echo and the Bunnymen that turned me onto the Doors with their cover of People are Strange", and years later I really got into the Australian band The Easybeats who were covered here by fellow countrymen Jimmy Barnes and INXS with "Goof Times" which was my favorite song from the soundtrack.
The only extras on the UHD is the Audio Commentary by Joel Schumacher, with all other extras appearing on the accompanying Blu-ray, which carries over all the previous extras produced back in 2004 except for a photo gallery, but otherwise I can think of no reason to hang onto that previous Blu-ray, trade it in! These archival extras are still pretty great, especially since producer Richard Donner, director Joel Schumacher, and actors Corey Haim and Edward Herrmann all appear in interviews and have all since passed onto the great silver screen in the sky. There are no new extras but I am pleased to report that the Blu-ray is not a recycle of the 2008 Blu-ray, and contains the new 4K scan in standard definition, which is cool.
The 2-disc UHD/BD release arrives in a black dual-hub keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork, a new design, which I don't much care for, and is repeated on the slipcover. It's not that original movie poster was any great shakes but I do wish that they would have included a reversible sleeve of artwork with it just to have the original artwork. Inside there's a redemption code for a digital copy of the film you can redeem through Movies Anywhere or Vudu. I redeemed mine through Vudu and no extras were included.
Special Features:
Disc 1: 4K UHD Disc
- Audio Commentary by Director Joel Schumacher
Disc 2: Blu-ray Disc
- Audio Commentary by Director Joel Schumacher
- The Lost Boys: A Retrospective (24 min)
- Inside the Vampire's Cave: A Director's Vision (7 min)
- Inside the Vampire's Cave: Comedy vs. Horror (5 min)
- Inside the Vampire's Cave: Fresh Blood-A New Look at Vampires (4 min)
- Inside the Vampire's Cave: The Lost Boys Sequel? (2 min)
- Vamping Out: The Undead Creations of Greg Cannon (14 min)
- The Return of Sam and the Frog Brothers: Haimster & Feldog-The Story of the 2 Coreys (5 min)
- The Return of Sam and the Frog Brothers: Multi-Angle Video Commentary by Corey Haim, Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander (18 min)
- The Lost Scenes (15 min)
- Lou Gramm "Lost in the Shadows" Music Video (5 min)
- Trailer (1 min)
The Lost Boys (1987) looks stunning in 4K Ultra HD from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, absolutely worth the upgrade even if there are no new extras.
Screenshots from the 2022 WB Blu-ray:
