DVD Reviews

Lost Boys: The Thirst – DVD Review

By Jeff Swindoll Oct 16, 2010, 14:52 GMT

As the lost boys and girls of San Cazador prepare to party under the Blood Moon, an alpha vampire conspires to turn these unsuspecting ravers into an army of undead. The only thing that stands between him and the annihilation of the entire human race is the infamous vampire fighting Frog Brothers. Armed with double-barrel holy water balloon launchers and multi-arrow crossbows, Edgar (Corey Feldman) and Alan Frog (Jamison Newlander) ...more

Jonah Hex was better. There I said it. That was my double feature for the evening and the box office flop won.

A Lost Boys sequel had long been wanted by fans, but if this is all Warner Brothers can manage then they should’ve left the stake in the corpse.

Vampire hunters Edgar (Corey Feldman) and Alan (Jamison Newlander) Frog are dealing with some governmental vampires, the literal bloodsucking kind not the usual figurative bloodsuckers, when Alan is infected by vampire blood.

Alan runs away, five years pass, and Edgar has fallen on hard times. He’s in San Cazador, California and his trailer is about to be foreclosed on. He decides to sell his beloved comic collection to try and salvage his home but only finds the owner of the comic shop won’t offer much.

His friend Zoe (Casey B. Dolan) works at the comic shop and offers to put them online for him. On his return to his trailer he finds that Gwen Lieber (Tanit Phoenix), the author of some popular vampire romance novels, is there. Her brother Peter (Felix Mosse) has been kidnapped by a coven of vampires.

It seems this group, led by DJ X (Seb Castang), has been setting up illegal raves where they distribute vampire blood disguised as a drug called “the Thirst.” There next stop is San Cazador and supposedly their leader is the first vampire in the world, an alpha vampire.

At first, Edgar is disinterested in hunting the coven but he changes his mind. He leads a ragtag group that includes Zoe, reality show host Lars van Goetz (Stephen van Niekerk), and his cameraman Claus (Joe Vaz) into the den of the undead to free Peter and kill the vampire that started it all.

I was spared Lost Boys: The Tribe. I hear it was awful, but did feature a return of Feldman and even Corey Haim stopped in during the credits setting up a plotline that might have happened in a third film.

Unhappily, Haim and Feldman had another falling out but Haim’s death of a drug overdose put any hopes of another reunion on ice (he was supposedly to appear in a fourth film after commenting on not appearing this film).

The original Lost Boys (1987) made vampires cool and young again and a whole generation to rediscover the bloodsucking hipsters of the night. A sequel was always looked for, but always failed to materialize. Maybe now we can see why.

It would appear to me that although loved by fans, Warner Brothers had no love for the Lost Boys or the Frog brothers. The studio developed a direct-to-DVD product line called Warner Premiere and the Lost Boys was delegated to that line so “big budget” return was not in the cards.

Even worse, the Thirst bears the moniker “teleplay by…” which also tells me that at least this sequel was written with television in mind (SyFy?).

Feldman glowers and snarls his way though the film and it may have worked in the original, but it grated on me during this one. His standard response is to frown and growl. There only seems to be a sliver of difference in some of his final scenes. Our heroes are a bit long in the tooth and have seen better days.

Actually playing that up and exploring what might happen to an old vampire hunter whose prey remains young and beautiful may have actually been something to see. That’s not what happened.

Instead we get a battle royale that isn’t much of one. It does play out in Warners backyard so we get Edgar having a Looney Tunes ringtone and a Bugs Bunny cartoon shows up, but it’s clear that they budget was low.

The Thirst is presented in widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include the 12 minute “Charisma Carpenter hosts The Art of Seduction: Vampire Lore” that talks about our erotic fascination with the creatures of the night.

Oh for what could’ve been. It’s obvious that Warner Brothers don’t realize how to do up the Lost Boys right. Their direct-to-video sequels only enhance how good the first movie was (is Joel Schumacher cursing them with mediocrity for this reason?). Put the stake back in. A triumphant return this is not.