The Lost Boys: The Thirst

I don’t think you could call it a guilty pleasure, because it was fairly popular, but the 1980s vampire movie The Lost Boys has always been a lot of fun for me, despite a number of campy elements that now seem dated. For years, attempts to produce a sequel to the movie came to naught, but twenty years later, the story continued (sort of) in 2008’s direct-to-video The Lost Boys: The Tribe. Sales were good for the film, and the producers went ahead with this year’s The Lost Boys: The Thirst, which is more of a direct sequel.

Over twenty years have passed since the first movie and the Frog Brothers, Alan (Jamison Newlander) and Edgar (Corey Feldman) have been busy in the vampire-killing business. Things have slowed of late, since Alan became infected with the vampire virus during one of their battles. For some reason that isn’t explained in the film, he doesn’t become the sort of vicious murderer as the other vampires. Maybe it was the Frog steely willpower. Anyway, Edgar is on his own, and is hired by the author of a best-selling series of vampire romances to save her brother, who has been kidnapped by vampires.

It seems the original “alpha” vampire has been holding raves in which a drug called thirst is passed around to the revelers. Thirst is actually vampire blood, and “DJ X” plans to build a vampire army. Edgar leads a decidedly rag-tag group, including a reality TV star (!) into the vampire’s den, to save the brother (who looks uncomfortably like Justin Bieber) and kill the alpha vampire, which will presumably cause all the vampires in his bloodline to revert to normal. There is a fairly illogical ending.

It isn’t the first one, obviously. Feldman is asked to more or less carry the whole movie, and while I’ve never thought he was a terrible actor, his character is written to be fairly one-dimensional and mock-grim, and begins to wear on you. Production values, script and direction are decent, and there isn’t anyone in the movie having as difficult a time with their role as Angus Sutherland in the last installment. Whatever is up Feldman allowing one strand of hair to dangle in his face I have no idea, but he seems to do it in real life as well.

This isn’t as good as the original, but it does have its moments. Pop a lot of popcorn and disengage the logic portion of your brain, and you probably will have a good time with it. I liked it better than the first sequel, for what that’s worth.
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