The Lost Boys

"One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach. All the damn vampires.". Hehehe, classic lines like this make this 1980's teen vampire horror a cult classic. I remember the days when we would watch this video over and over and now that the dvd release has arrived, it's time to do it all over again. I've already watched it 3 times; It's simply a classic.

Sam, Corey Haim, Michael, Jason Patric, and their mother Lucy, Dianne Wiest, have moved to peaceful Santa Carla. Or so they think. Michael becomes embroiled with the local gang, vampires, and Sam befriends the frog brothers, a couple of know all vampire killers.

From there, Michael resists the temptation to become a full vampire whilst Sam and Co devise plans to kill the vampires and save his brother only to find the mother dearest has infact been dating the head Vampire. Who comes to the rescue, none other than ...

The video transfer is great. I only ever remembered this movie in its Pan & Scan form and seeing the 2.35:1 widescreen version really 'presented' this movie to me in a way I never knew.

From the outset, the image is very clear. It is a dark movie by nature and dvd helps do it justice (as always). After a few viewings I'd have to say that the actual video is not as sharp as it maybe could have been but it's a damn good transfer for an 11 year old print.

I'd recommend watching this disc in a darkened roomed with a nicely calibrated screen. The colors are beautifully saturated throughout the movie so you won't have any lack of red blood on the screen. This truly is a fresh look at one of my favorite movies.

Hmm, for a 5.1 encoded movie this sure did sound like your basic dolby surround instead.

The Surrounds weren't used as often as I would have expected and I really had to move up close to the rear speakers and fiddle with the test tones just to make sure that the speakers were indeed working.

The only time you'd really here any rear audio was during any musical score being played and only then did it make use of the entire sound-field. The audio is the only drawback of this movie IMHO as a true 5.1 soundtrack would really have livened this up movie.

Dialogue was clear although I had to up the center channel a notch. Directional effects were used sparingly and bass, although present, was not very oomphy. I might be getting a chance to try it on someone elses, much larger, system so I might do some ammendments to the review but as of what I heard, it's a mediocre 5.1 soundtrack.

Not much here apart from the usual trailer and production notes. The way the extras section is laid out you'd think that some sort of short clip would be shown but in actuallity it is a handful of pages of text which annoys me no end trying to sit and read them all.

I don't know about you, but TV isn't exactly made for reading small text off which comes to my next gripe, the menu text was the most unreadable I have come across.

If you were a fan of the Lost boys as I was then you're gonna enjoy adding his disc to your collection. If you haven't yet seen it, do yourself a favor and borrow it, along with Interview with the Vampire, and have a blood sucking weekend. It is an enjoyable time-warp to the late 80's and teenage nightwalkers.