The Lost Boys (1987)

directed by Joel Schumacher

Laura Hadland

It can be pretty hard to put the events of our early childhood in their proper sequence. When we are young, we live in the moment and fresh experiences are more frequent. It never occurs to us that our awakenings should be carefully treasured and recorded. So it’s hard for me to put my finger exactly on what year it was that I first saw The Lost Boys. Certainly, it was in the early ‘90s, and I would have been 10 or a little older. The film was released in 1987, so I was late to the party.

While the timings are inexact, the memory of the circumstances is fresh in my mind. My sister, seven years my senior, had left home at the tender age of 16. She occupied a single-room bedsit that represented previously unknown levels of freedom to me. A world beyond the family home. It was a shock to my sensibilities and thrillingly exciting. Looking back, it was probably a pretty crumby experience for her. It was a grubby flat in a rain-soaked street of mundane desolation. But on my occasional visits to her after school, I was full of wonder.

She would give me forbidden snacks, and we would walk round the corner, down the rows of terraced houses to the Jack and the Beanstalk independent video shop and rent a title or two. My family were late adopters of the VCR—my parents only got one after our house was broken into and they found that it was included as standard on their ‘new for old’ insurance policy. Renting a film—choosing exactly what you wanted to watch—was a totally new experience.

My sister picked up The Lost Boys for us on one of these cosy afternoons. Besides feeling vastly smug that I was watching a 15-certificate film, I remember that it transformed my view of the world and its possibilities. I dreamed afterwards of being called Star and hanging out with gorgeous (non-vampiric) biker boys with flowing hair and wild eyes. The film definitely cemented my crush on Alex Winter, who had already pervaded my consciousness through the Bill and Ted films.

I was taken by the gleeful hedonism of the kids in the film—human and vampire alike. The youngest—my peers—with their comic book stores, the older ones hanging out with friends at the Boardwalk. It felt like a dream world, a riot of escapism and colour. Revolutionary for me, as I was just beginning to understand that I too would one day have a life separate from my parents.

“They’re only noodles, Michael.”

As an interesting aside, this was also the first time I’d seen an American-style Chinese takeout container.

This imagery also burned itself into my brain. The joyous abandon of eating chow mein with chopsticks directly out of those iconically-shaped cardboard containers. Noodles or worms, it was another symbol of a world that I had yet to explore. This strange freedom that young people had waiting for them as they left the watchful gaze of their parents.

We never had takeout food at home when I was growing up, and even if we had, my mother certainly would have decanted it to plates. The closest we ever came was the annual sharing of a portion of delicious fat, greasy chips at the seaside. We sat in the car eating them straight from the off-white paper. Scalding, steaming potato burned our fingers while the rain drummed down the windscreen. I have to confess that I’m yet to experience these Chinese containers IRL as in the UK our Chinese delivery always comes, rather disappointingly, in neat plastic tubs with snap-on lids. They are probably better for transporting food, to be fair. But where’s the romance?

“It’s actually a pretty cool place - if you’re a Martian.”

If I saw The Lost Boys pop up in the TV listings, I’d carefully make a note to watch it. Finally, I managed to score a late-night recording using Videoplus—the automated recording system that would flick your home VCR into action at the allotted time using a code obtained from the listings guide. Sadly, any slight change in the schedule would mean that your precious programme would be cut off prematurely. For me, that meant that a white static storm descended just at the pivotal moment when Grandpa drives his truck through the wall and throws a huge wooden stake through Max, the true head vampire (spoiler alert, sorry). It’s always a surprise when I rewatch the film and it doesn’t end at that point.

I watched and re-watched that tape until it wore out, the sound muted and muffled. The movie continued to bump in and out of my life until it made a solid return years later. I was traveling round the world with my husband, the happy result of an unexpected but delightful competition win (yes, someone does win those contests.) We befriended two energetic Californians on our adventures and one of them came from Santa Cruz, CA. Yes, aka Santa Carla: The Murder Capital of the World.

We hung out for several weeks, skipping Mexico thanks to the outbreak of swine flu, getting stuck in a Peruvian road blockade, and sharing an awful lot of beer. It turned out that we had firm, lifelong friends on our hands. So duly, when the time came for my Cruzer friend to be wed, we saved up the cash to take a plane over—our first visit to the United States of America.

“If all the corpses buried around here were to stand up all at once, we’d have one hell of a population problem.”

I was thrilled to discover that a lot of the filming occurred on location in Santa Cruz and in the wider county. You could actually visit the places that had imprinted themselves on my imagination. Visit some, but not all, since the city sustained significant damage after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. That model humpback whale, bursting forth from a storefront in a montage of the town’s wacky characters while the Doors play “People Are Strange”? Gone. I’m reliably informed that it was on what is now Days Supermarket on Watson Street near the phenomenal Seabright Brewery.

The comic book store owned by the Frog Brothers’ parents was also a victim of the quake. Those scenes were filmed at Atlantis Fantasyworld, which has changed locations twice since then. You can go to the present incarnation at 1020 Cedar Street now if the mood strikes you.

Thankfully, some iconic pieces of Lost Boys lore do survive still to this day. The Santa Cruz Boardwalk is a must-visit for anyone heading to the city, as California’s only remaining traditional seaside funfair, with the views from the Giant Dipper at night being the best thing you’ll find to recreate the experience of watching the movie.

I loved my turn on the historic early 20th-century carousel, where we first meet David and his gang. What I didn’t know was that to make it extra fun, you also throw brass rings into a gaping clown mouth as you twirl around on the gaudy horses. A delightful discovery. It is extra fun.

I also went to visit the railroad trestle bridge, over the San Lorenzo river. It made me smile that the bridge where newly inducted vampire Michael breathlessly hangs down is only actually a few feet over the shallow water. And, researching this article, I know now that this is not the Lost Boys bridge at all. The scene was filmed at the Iron Horse Trailhead trestle bridge in Santa Clarita. Which is a huge disappointment and proves that you should never interrogate your heroes too closely.

Thirty years on and I still watch the movie, utterly transfixed, though I know every scene and every line. I am older, much older, than the Lost Boys now—I did not find my own Peter Pan secret to eternal youth. But I continue to feel the joy and exhilaration of those wild adolescents, having done a fair bit of my own wilding in my teens, twenties, and beyond. And now, like any superfan, I have the T-shirt too. Not a straight movie t-shirt though. It is emblazoned with a fictional Frog Bros Comic Store poster, a secret code offering kinship to all those who know that Santa Carla would be a great place to live—if it wasn’t for all the damn vampires.

Laura Hadland is a British drinks writer, who likes to unearth interesting stories about cool people. She writes for a range of publications, including regular columns for What's Brewing and Vineyard Magazine. Her first book was named Best Beer Book in the World 2022. She's also just taken a class in printmaking and is now obsessed with making beer-themed art.