 | Starring: Tad Hilgenbrink, Angus Sutherland, Autumn Reeser, Gabrielle Rose, Corey Feldman Directed by: P.J. Pesce
Written by: Hans Rodionoff
Genre: Horror
Year: 2008
Country: USA
Language: English
Runtime: 94 min
Media: DVD
Imdb:
Rating: 5
|
The sequel to the 1987 cult hit The Lost Boys takes us to the shady surf city of Luna Bay, California, where vampires quickly dispatch anyone who crosses their path. Into this dark world arrive Chris Emerson (Hilgenbrink) and his younger sister, Nicole (Reeser). Having just lost their parents in a car accident, the siblings move in with their eccentric Aunt Jillian and become new prey for the locals way of life. When Nicole unwittingly falls for a local vampire, Chris must locate and destroy the gangs lifeline before his sisters transformation is complete; to do this Chris finds himself relying on the expertise of none other than Edgar Frog (Feldman). Subtle references to characters from the original film, and cameos from returning actors offer homage to the Lost Boys legend and set a sinister tone of impending doom.
This film actually surprised me. Watching a sequel to one of Joel Schumacher's few good films puts the expectations pretty low, direct to DVD release even lower, and scraping the bottom of the barrel at 21 years after the original. To find a film that wasn't absolutely terrible is almost shocking. The acting at points is terrible, there is plenty of digital grain in the picture, moments of digital slo-mo (Basically in post they slowed the shot down because they didn't think to shoot it like that originally leaving the image all blurry and pixelated.) and the randomness of how vampires die in this film are all things I expected. What worked was the simplicity of the story arch. It wasn't as elaborate as the original but it didn't shoot for the moon with stupid worthless twists and turns.
The opening scene is worth a rental alone. With Tom Savini showing up as a beach side mansion owning douche bag with a little twist.
Now, originally this film was a script about surfing werewolves which I think is a fun grindhouse style story. However much of that script remains in the Lost Boys 2 I'm not sure. All I can say is; these guys are surfers? It starts with some darkened day surfing (obviously can't really surf at night and film it) and then they spend 30 minutes talking about how the main character and the vampires are all world famous surfers who've quit/disappeared/died. Finally, they show a small portion of what looks like found footage of people surfing with the skies digitally blackened and ADR of the cast doing some "Woohoo"s. I guess it's too much to ask for them to possibly just shoot the actors surfing on one of those indoor Flowrider systems. Get the closeups of them wiggling back and forth on the water and cut to that so your audience actually believes just a little tiny bit that the characters can surf.
Also, from the original is the idea that vampires who are staked in the heart burst into flames. Nowadays with movies like Blade that idea has been pushed to an extreme. But, as a sequel you have a preset world of rules to work with so why not adhere to them. Why, oh why, does the first vampire to get staked turn to stone and then burst into CGI crystal? A later vampire melts. Zuh?
I'd say the best part of the movie really is Corey Feldman. Returning as Edgar Frog from the original the dude looks like it's been only a few years since 1987. Cocaine is a hell of a drug apparently. He has some unique new tools for fighting vampires and the Alternate Ending for the film gives fans of the first a few more fun cameos. I did like that even after 20 some years he's still not a very good vampire hunter. He uses a garlic bolo that just fails to do anything. And the line about becoming an ordained minister over the internet to make holy water completely made up for the stupid bottled water labeled "Holy Water" used to make his patented Frog Juice.
Bottom line is this is just mediocre. Which is actually a decent place for a sequel especially one that went direct to DVD. Definitely not the worst vampire movie I've ever seen (Bloodrayne). Plus it has enough things going for it you can shut your brain off, relax and enjoy it for the most part.
