Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys wasn't a film I immediately warmed to. I didn't see it until Warner released their first DVD edition in 1998 being a Christmas present that same year. At the time, I was still fairly new to the horror genre and voraciously renting classics I had read about in Michael Weldon's must-own Psychotronic Video Guide To Film. It was also then that I was discovering Christopher Lee's iconic turns as Dracula. So this contemporary '80s take on vampire lore was a victim of timing. The fifteen-year-old me couldn't see reasoning behind the praise while lost in the gothic majesty of Hammer productions.Eventually Lost Boys proved itself a classic in subsequent viewings as an evolutionary step in horror comedies. Enduring qualities of the vamp subgenre are respected and balanced with slick levity and teenage awareness absent in prior major studio meldings like The Goonies (1985). The young cast does an excellent job, and what seemed the norm for its decade, the screenplay crafts characters that feel realistic regardless of their ages. A shame Schumacher didn't return to horror until 2009's Blood Creek (thoughts here).
This Warner VHS from Japan is fairly common, just like their US tape, but I figured I'd share. The seller claimed it was dubbed in Japanese, but probably only watched the couple Japanese previews in the beginning. The cropped full screen feature is in English with small Japanese subtitles. At least on VHS/Beta, I don't believe Warner released this dubbed. This copy has no fading to its sleeve, making it a decent find, since blues and reds bleached out quickly once these old rental editions found swap meet sunshine.
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