The Lost Boys

Synopsis

A recently divorced mother takes her family to live with her father in California. Her two sons discover a gang of vampires in the town. One son, Michael, inadvertently gets involved with the gang because of a pretty face and becomes a half-vampire (once he drinks his first human blood he will become a full vampire). The other son, Sam, fortunately gets acquainted with some vampire detectives. Sam must try to help Michael become human again by killing the leader of the vampire gang.

Entertainment Value - 3

I saw this movie a while back, but thought it would be appropriate to post a review after hearing the news of Corey Haim's unfortunate death yesterday.  I don't know why, but I've come across this film (never seen it) quite a few times in my life and for some reason thought it was more highly acclaimed than it actually was.  It was a special on whatever channel does "Movies for Guys who like Movies," so they obviously thought it was good.  Even edited for TV the film was rather violent.  I'm perplexed at whatever the rationale is of creating an R-rated film targeted to young teenagers, when they normally can't watch the film without an adult.  Granted I'm an adult and I saw it of my own accord, but I didn't really enjoy it.  At first I thought it was rather a waste of my time having sat and watched it, but reflecting on it more I came to some pretty neat realizations.

Moral Value - Failure to Communicate? - 3

[Spoiler Alert]

Even though the movie portrayed some pretty serious evil, it did so in a way to not glamorize it, but to show us the destroying effects of evil.  Michael, the son who became half-vampire, at first wanted acceptance into this "cool" new group of friends and realized he had gotten in too deep, too late. With his constant desire to attack humans, he struggled to control himself, and this restraint is what ultimately allowed him to not become utterly consumed by this evil curse.

Restraints (obedience/adherence to laws, commandments, standards, etc.) do not exist to keep us from happiness, they are there to protect us from becoming enslaved by evil.  The ideal situation would have been for Michael to not get mixed up with the gang in the first place, but that would have defeated the purpose of the movie.

Another specific incident in the show really made me think.  The mother ends up falling for (inadvertently) the head vampire (whom Sam and his vampire hunters already suspect) and invites him over for dinner. When he arrives at the house, he waits to be invited in (normal behavior, right?). Once invited in, dinner is served and all attempts to expose him as a vampire (by Sam and et al.) are oddly ineffective (e.g., passing him garlic instead of Parmesan cheese, which should have burned him). During the battle at the end of the movie, we see that the mother's love interest actually is the head vampire, and the reason he couldn't be exposed earlier (at the dinner table) was that he was invited into the house.

Once we invite evil things into our lives, we become powerless to see it for what it is. We become enslaved to evil thinking and doing the longer we entertain it, and it can ultimately destroy us and our families.  On a more positive note, however difficult evil is to discern in our daily lives, God has promised us He "will not leave [us] comfortless: [He] will come to [us]."  We are all blessed with the Spirit of Christ when we are born and have the power to discern between good and evil.