Finding the Lost Boys

My university was in the small town of Socorro, New Mexico. We had one small theater called the Loma, which usually showed movies a few months after their release. In the autumn of 1987, I went with a group of friends to see the Joel Schumacher film, The Lost Boys, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric, and Jami Gertz. I was deep in the throes of working on my physics degree and much more into movies about exploring the galaxy than about vampires. I remember finding the movie a fine diversion, but it didn’t make much of an impression on me. I missed the Peter Pan allusions and I was a little thrown off by the notion of young, attractive vampires. Since then, I’ve become more familiar with J.M. Barrie’s classic and we’ve had numerous examples of young, attractive vampires ranging from many of Anne Rice’s characters to characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I began to think this was a film I should watch again.

Because so much film viewing is migrating to streaming services, it seems a lot of stores are reducing their inventory of DVDs and Blu-rays. I managed to find a copy of The Lost Boys at my local Barnes and Noble for just $6.00. I suspect that’s less in today’s dollars than I paid for a theater ticket back in 1987. As I sat down to watch the movie with my daughter, I realized she’s almost exactly the age I was when I first saw the film. I thought it would be interesting to compare notes. Of course, she also came to the movie with a more diverse taste in film than I had at her age and there was nothing alien to her about young vampires.

All in all, I enjoyed the movie more now than I remember enjoying it back in 1987. It was funnier than I remembered, poking fun at vampire tropes while also embracing them. The movie tells the story of two brothers who move to a coastal city in Northern California with their recently divorced mom. The younger brother, Sam, meets Edgar and Alan Frog who work at a local comic book store. They give him a comic about vampires as a warning about the local menace in town.

Meanwhile, the older brother, Michael, finds himself drawn to a woman named Star. She introduces him to her friends, who at first glance appear to be a troublemaking bike gang. They invite Michael to ride with them and they lead him to the ruins of an old beachside hotel, which serves as their hangout. Strange things begin to occur and it soon becomes apparent to the audience, if not Michael, that the bike gang is, in fact, a vampire coven.

My daughter and I both found the movie funnier and less violent than we expected. I remembered more bloodshed in the movie, but I may have been conflating the movie with others of the period. The young, self-proclaimed vampire hunters, Edgar and Alan Frog were definitely the show’s highlight, but all of the cast had great moments. I also had conflated the movie with a lot of Southern California-set beach movies of the time and had forgotten how much the movie’s setting reflected Santa Cruz, where it was filmed.

I’m glad I rediscovered The Lost Boys and gave it another chance. The movie’s blend of humor, subtle literary reference, and using vampires to cast a critical eye on a time and place are all things I like doing in my own writing. Even though the movie didn’t resonate with me much a the time, I wonder how much of its approach to storytelling managed to influence me. There’s no doubt the movie influenced works that came after it and I know many of those works did influence me.

You can check out my vampire fiction at http://www.davidleesummers.com/books.html#scarlet_order and judge for yourself!

Peter and Wendy

I suspect I’m like most people in that I am most familiar with the story of Peter Pan as told in the 1953 Disney film. The film is based on a 1904 play of the same name by J.M. Barrie. The play’s author novelized the play as Peter and Wendy in 1911. As it turns out, the first motion picture novelizations appeared around this time. The upshot is that Peter and Wendy is probably one of the most enduring novelizations ever written.

To be honest, Peter Pan is not my favorite Disney film. Peter always seemed like a bit of a jerk and while Hollywood in general was not known for its cultural sensitivity in the 1950s, the song “What Made the Red Man Red” is a low point in racist portrayals of Native Americans. Still, there’s a lot I feel like I ought to like about Peter Pan. It’s the story of kids who don’t want to lose their imagination by growing up, which is a theme that appeals to me a lot as a writer of imaginative fiction. Also, Captain Hook and his crew are among the most iconic pirates in fiction, which should appeal to me as a writer of pirate fiction. Of course, the Disney film does have its good points. I love its portrayal of Tinker Bell and I feel the movie actually improved a bit on Barrie by changing the location of the Neverland from “first to the right and straight on till morning” to “first star to the right and straight on till morning.”

So, I sought out Peter and Wendy. It’s probably no surprise that I liked the book more than the movie, even if the movie was made by Walt Disney. The Native Americans in the book are still stereotypes, but it’s easier to see how they were connected to the Native Americans of the period’s dime novels and would be the ones kids would see in their imaginations. The pirates were wicked and wonderful. Mr. and Mrs. Darling show a lot of love and concern for their children. The biggest surprise, though, was the relationship between Peter Pan and Wendy Darling.

In the novel, Wendy shows affection for Peter, but Peter doesn’t quite understand that affection and doesn’t how to return it. Peter describes himself as “gay and innocent and heartless.” Although I’m no expert on J.M. Barrie, this takes on an interesting added dimension when I read that he was likely asexual. A lot about Peter Pan and his relationship with Wendy feels like the author trying to come to terms with a kind of relationship he didn’t completely understand.

My favorite element of the story is the emphasis on holding onto the imagination and the importance of storytelling. After all, the reason Peter brings Wendy to the Neverland is so she can serve as a storyteller to the Lost Boys. Ultimately, it’s Wendy the storyteller who brings the Lost Boys back from the Neverland to grow to adulthood under the care of her parents. In this way, Peter and Wendy reminds us that we shouldn’t forsake our imaginations and the stories of our youth because they can be a way to help us understand and process the reality around us.

I encourage you to join me on adventures to lands near and far. You’ll likely even find a few pirates along the way. You can learn more about my fiction at http://www.davidleesummers.com.