*Blog entry started on February 24, 2020.
Everything should be lined up for C2E2, at least it should be when I retrieve the proper credit cards to charge everything on. My better quarter (Eva the Cat will always get half) had her cosplay idea and it is of minimal effort. She wants to roam around McCormick Place in Pikachu hoodie and call it a costume. I have a Pokeball hoodie that she got me for Christmas, so we can do a group thing.
Would you be comfortable walking around with a ball gag?
Modify that bondage gear to look like Pokeball, buy some cheap sex toys at Spencers, we got something clever, which she even acknowledged. Pokémon Master and Porno Pika.
It's a family oriented affair!
Really? I have seen enough guys in tights who either needed dance belts or jockstraps. We would not have been that scary. It would have been a "The Lost Boys" R-Rating at worse.
And now I am wondering how to PG-13 BDSM. If only it was as easy as killing a few curse words and hiding some boobs.
Lost Boys: The Thirst - A Chance to Raise It on the Tomatometer
If a direct-to-DVD sequel (to a sequel in this case) occurs, someone had to like the previous release. "Lost Boys: The Tribe" was Warner Premiere's bestselling release, so at least the executives like it. With only six negative reviews to its credit, one would think the new set of writes and directors would have read them and created their sequel to ensure a better feature.
"The Tribe" totally missed its mark by making Edgar Frog (Corey Feldman's character) just a supporting player. He was the only good thing about the film, and I presume critics pointed that out as well. Maybe the producers were just trying a soft reintroduction to the character since a continuation of his story and other past characters were featured in the mid-credits of that film. Wikipedia gave me that information because "The Tribe" was so disappointing that I did not let the credits finish before shutting off the disc player.
When executives see that a DVD sold a million and a quarter copies, you had to wonder if they were going to repeat the same formula. Sexy teens versus vampires who just happen to come upon Feldman to carry the rest of the feature worked once (financially), why not again? Fortunately, "Lost Boys: The Thirst's" box art only featuring one male lead on it, and that being Feldman, sold me on hitting up a Red Box to see if the franchise has corrected itself in terms of quality.
After destroying covens in Santa Carla, Washington D.C., and Luna Bay, Edgar Frog is residing in San Cazador, California. The vampire hunting business appears to be dead and it is difficult having only night hours for potential surfboard shaving customers, so his trailer and plot are about to be repossessed. His comic book collection has been assessed at a value that will not put him in the black, so unless he wants to part with "Batman No. 14", he will soon be homeless.
Serendipitously, Stephenie Meyer stand in Gwen Lieber arrives to offer him a job. Her brother Peter has been kidnapped by a vampiric DJ, DJ X. She has no idea what he has planned for her sibling, but it must involve the new party drug that he is distributing at his raves called the Thirst. The only problem with this drug is that it is actually vampire blood. If Frog does not do something, an army of blood suckers will be set on devouring the West Coast in no time.
I enjoyed "Lost Boys: The Thirst" so much, that I picked up the Blu-ray the first $10 sale tag was stuck to it. Heavily comic book-influenced vampire films are up my alley provided they do not take themselves too seriously. If you can chuckle along the way at the weaknesses and plot holes of hominis nocturna, you should enjoy this feature. It is a brilliant recovery from the teen drama elements that "The Tribe" focused on.
There are points where you feel that perhaps our protagonists should be taking the story more seriously, and there performances show that. Primarily Jamison Newlander reprising his role as Frog Brother Allan, but with three scenes, you cannot blame him for chewing up the scenery. The other acting shortcomings revolve around the antagonists who just lack conviction in there performances. It is kind of like the indie wrestling scene after WCW and ECW died. They wanted to be cool instead of three dimensional adversaries.
The movie outside of Edgar Frog and his rag tag crew of vampire hunters (the sexy "Twilight" author with the British accent, the cute bookworm who has a crush of Edgar, and the reality TV uber-jock and his chubby cameraman), the film can drag. I do not recall the classic needing more than one scene to establish how evil the Vampires were without a protagonist present, and in that scene, there was no intelligible dialogue.
These scenes' inclusion must be the director Dario Piana effort to show his abilities as a director. Unfortunately, he misses the marks. At times during intense action or rave scenes, it looks like he was shooting an eighties European rock video. The credits indicate that, despite the MPAA rating, this was originally a teleplay. We did not need any further reinforcement this was never meant for AMC or Fathom Events.
If I had one more bone to pick with the film is that it seems to miss the mark with raves. I have never been to one, but any bar scene can be a party drug scene. Most kids probably experiment with drugs via Greek life (which I think should be abolished, but that is a blog for another time). The rave as a platform to create the pandemic has been used in other bad direct-to-video horror sequels ("Return of the Living Dead: Rave 2 the Grave"), so it has just been played out.
"Lost Boys: The Thirst" falls into that nice space between guilty pleasure and fandom. The production could have been better, but the story and our protagonists work so well, you can forgive that. This serves as a great conclusion to this incarnation of the franchise, but I would not mind a chance to tag along with Edgar and Allan one more time.
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