The Lost Boys (Warner Bros, 1987)

In the constantly evolving world of pop culture the horror genre, like fashion, cycles through which monsters or tropes are currently in vogue. In the dark era from 2000-2010 we lived through sparkly vampires thanks to the Twilight books and subsequent movies. From 2010-2014 it was all about zombies due to the height of Walking Dead fandom and from 2015-2020 we had a run on jump scares and final-girls, while overlapping those last couple of years were a lot of slasher/serial killers. Of course, these subgenres weren’t alone during these timespans, but every so many years Hollywood seems to turn its attention to one specific monster more often than others.

Considering how shafted vampires got the last time it was their turn, it seems only fitting that this time around they are being portrayed as nature intended. Both big and small screen offerings like Blood Red Sky (2021), Midnight Mass (2021), The Invitation (2022) and The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023) have returned to depicting vampires as dark-needing, dirt-sleeping, human-eating, bringers of terror – which is how things should be. The only way this depiction gets better is when vampires are all of the above, as well as being really great to look at. And for that we need to go back to the 80’s.

The cast of The Lost Boys included Corey Feldman, Jami Gertz, Corey Haim,
Edward Herrmann, Barnard Hughes, Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland and Dianne Wiest

I credit Anne Rice and her first novel Interview with the Vampire (1976) for getting the ball rolling on the vampire that was both deadly and beautiful. It took a few years to catch on, but by 1983 we had Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie in The Hunger, Grace Jones in Vamp (1986) and the topic of today’s info, The Lost Boys (1986).

In the past thirty-eight years the film made the jump from 80’s eye-candy vampire flick, to full on cult classic, attracting a couple of follow-on generations along the way. To this day you can find The Lost Boys playing in theaters during weekends in October and if you haven’t recently listened to the soundtrack, the music holds up. Kieffer Sutherland and Jason Patrick still get mobbed at conventions, and apparently sometime in the near future, you’re going to see the story make the jump from screen to Broadway.

Caissie Levy and Lorna Courtney
(Photos c/o Storehouse PR and Grapevine PR)

On January 24th Deadline reported that an invitation-only industry reading for The Lost Boys: A New Musical will take place in New York City on February 23rd with stage stars Caissie Levy (Frozen), Nathan Levy (Dear Evan Hansen) and Lorna Courtney (& Juliet) in pivotal roles. Before a show gets into full-fledged production, readings like this are held to solicit feedback on the dialog/music, and to pique the interest of investors. They also indicate that the project is green-lighted and close to kicking off.

We don’t have a lot of additional information other than the story will contain the character divorcee Lucy Emerson (Cassie Levy) who moves with her two sons to a beach town overrun with vampires. Like the movie, sons Sam (Nathan Levy) and Michael (casting TBD) get caught up in the undead doings thanks to Michael’s attraction to the semi-undead girl Star (Courtney).

What we do have is a really interesting teaser trailer. Check it…

I can’t remember the last time, if ever, I’ve seen a teaser trailer for a stage production, but the creators clearly know their target audience, with the music once again being prominently featured. The Lost Boys: A New Musical is being produced by special arrangement with Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, the live show and stageplay production arm of Warner Bros. They are most recently responsible for the musical version of Beetlejuice which I saw here in Chicago and absolutely loved, so I’m definitely there for The Lost Boys on stage.

No word on an opening night date at this point.