The Misplaced Boys, dangerous haircuts and all, nonetheless holds up

The Misplaced Boys’ poster made the prospect of changing into an undead creature of the night time fairly enticing: “Sleep all day. Celebration all night time. By no means develop previous. By no means die. It’s enjoyable to be a vampire.” However the film’s story is stuffed with teenage terrors: an older sibling within the grips of dependancy, divorced dad and mom, beginning over in an odd new place, and contending with adults who gained’t take heed to your actual, legitimate teenage issues.

Launched in 1987, The Misplaced Boys isn’t significantly terrifying as a horror movie. With its gaudily dressed vampires and long-flowing mullets — plus its iconic, extraordinarily sweaty saxophone man — it reads extra camp than straight horror three a long time later. And regardless of its R score, it’s pretty tame. Its single intercourse scene is fairly chaste and the movie’s gore is proscribed to gushes of blood from dying vampires.

The Misplaced Boys succeeds as an everlasting piece of vampire fiction due to its stars, with Kiefer Sutherland standing out as vampire gang chief David, and the sturdy bones of its story. In that story, not too long ago divorced single mother Lucy (Dianne Wiest) strikes to the fictional Southern California city of Santa Carla, “the homicide capital of the world,” the movie tells us, together with her teenage sons, Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam (Corey Haim). The displaced household strikes in with Lucy’s dad, an eccentric taxidermist identified solely as Grandpa.

Picture: Warner Bros./Everett Assortment

As they settle into the city, which seems to consist primarily of a densely trafficked seaside boardwalk, Lucy will get a job (and a possible boyfriend) at a video rental retailer, whereas Michael and Sam search new mates — Michael’s comes within the type of a gaggle of younger vampires, whereas Sam bonds with comedian guide retailer geeks Edgar (Corey Feldman) and Alan Frog (Jamison Newlander). When Michael falls for Star (Jami Gertz), a seductive vampire within the making and obvious companion of David, peer stress compels him to develop into a vampire himself.

Reverse Michael’s path, Sam throws in with the Frog brothers, who warn the brand new child on the town that Santa Carla’s entire murder-capital-of-the-world drawback stems from a nest of vampires. The Misplaced Boys doesn’t draw back from established vampire fiction with the Frog brothers; they use horror comedian books as a area guide to determine and kill vampires. (Refreshingly, in contrast to far too many fashionable zombie style tales, which refuse to make use of the phrase “zombie” in any respect, vampire fiction isn’t afraid of calling its monsters what they’re.)

Whereas Michael’s story of changing into bewitched by each Star and David is on the middle of the movie’s story, The Misplaced Boys can be Sam’s story of watching his brother slip right into a metaphorical dependancy throughout the “simply say no” period of the Reagan administration’s conflict on medication. It’s additionally a narrative set throughout an period of skyrocketing divorce charges; The Misplaced Boys performs masterfully on the worry of watching your dad and mom cut up and the inevitable alternative father determine coming into the image.

Photograph: Warner Bros./Everett Assortment

Sutherland and Patric maintain The Misplaced Boys collectively as rivals ostensibly competing for Star. As David, Sutherland channels Billy Idol as a spiky trickster, making Michael hallucinate that he’s consuming worms and maggots — when, in actuality, he’s consuming Chinese language takeout — earlier than David presents him with a style of actual vampire’s blood. As Michael, Patric performs it each cool and disaffected, but additionally earnest in his love for Star and afraid of his new vampire powers. There are sturdy set-pieces involving the 2 male leads, together with a second the place David and his vampire gang persuade Michael to hang around beneath a transferring prepare, compelling Michael to let go and embrace his capability to fly. It’s the film’s strongest allusion to its inspiration, J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.

Regardless of sturdy performances and nice character twists, The Misplaced Boys rushes towards its ending in clumsy and unsatisfying methods. Dianne Wiest’s Lucy has too little to do exterior of reacting to the boys within the movie, and Grandpa appears to have far more occurring than the movie reveals. Its 98-minute run time wanted a bit of extra time to breathe.

However The Misplaced Boys, very like ’80s kid-heroism motion pictures E.T. the Further-Terrestrial and The Goonies, is about its younger individuals. As an oft-campy time capsule of ’80s-era hopes and fears, it can by no means get previous.

The Misplaced Boys is presently streaming on Max.