THE LOST BOYS

When movies are the closest things to a religion you have, certain ones become ingrained in your DNA to the point where you can rewatch their entire runtime in your mind’s eye. Sometimes you say a quote out loud — at school or work — and you discover another person who shares that same appreciation. You discover another member of your long, lost tribe. These are brilliant moments: conflicting political views, different religions, even musical disagreements, mean nothing in the wake of a quote recited from a shared favorite movie.

The only thing better than finding another member of your cult is recruiting one. And one of the best things about being a father to an eleven-year-old is introducing him to the best fucking movies in the world.

Tonight I ordained my son Jay into the clan of THE LOST BOYS, a movie that defies its 33-years despite being forever trapped in that era. To this, I’m happy I’ve only re-watched it in the privacy of my home and never attempted to see it with a crowd at a revival screening. In a theater filled with Millenials, it’d be difficult to escape the gravity of its time: the clothes, the hairstyles, the music, the pumped-up sax-player who bathed in olive oil right before his big performance. When you’re alone, these things mean nothing. You only soak up the important things: its theme of brotherhood, its humor, its actors’ chemistry, and its boundless energy. In this, THE LOST BOYS doesn’t move from scene to scene so much as it hums.

The kid picked up on this too. As soon as the third act started, with the Thomas Newman score motivating our heroes to race against the sun to collect holy water and prep their home for defense, Jay took to the edge of his seat. By the time we hear Corey Haim declare “death by stereo”, we had a fist-pumping and a huge smile planted. And we hadn’t even gotten to that wonderful last line yet, the one the grandfather gives. A line, that to this movie-obsessed fan, is right up there with RoboCop declaring “Murphy” as his name, and Rocky looking to the TV cameras and saying “Yo, Adrian. I did it!” —

“One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach, all the damn vampires.”

Perfect.