Hope for the Lost Boys tv series

I’ve admitted before that I am a huge fan of the original Lost Boys film (and the sequels). The Lost Boys redefined the vampire genre and made me the vampire I am today. It is no surprise then that I am eager to see the Lost Boys tv series hit screens.

Sadly the Lost Boys series has been stuck in development hell for nearly four years now. There was an early pilot and the CW was disappointed with, but only enough to recast, rewrite and relocate. Most of the tv sites are already tracking the show’s progress more closely with every press release, so I want to linger on what made the original movie so fantastic and how that rawness needs to be in this series. It’s wonderful a second pilot is being made and it sounds exciting. I have high hopes.

The basic premise

There have been plenty of words surrounding the casting and choices made with both versions. This doesn’t matter that much, and going with a very different cast and storyline helps the series plot its own unique course.

At its core the Lost Boys story is about teen vampires. Actually the original premise was that the lost boys from Peter Pan were vampires. This placed the film at a younger age for both the cast and audience. That spirit existed in the Goonies. Joel Schumacher took over and matured the cast slightly, enough to bring sexual tension and energy into the story.

But let’s distill the story further. Two siblings and their single-parent move somewhere to start a new life. The siblings want to make new friends and fall in with certain crowds, including for the older sibling, falling in with a gang of vampires. Fortunately for the oldest, they start becoming a vampire themselves. While the gang of vampires are young and hot, there is a bigger community of vampires that could play into the story. And the younger sibling falls in with a pair who feel it necessary to denounce and persecute the vampires.

The location need not be California (sadly), and the siblings probably don’t need to be brothers, though that bond played well in the film. The gang of vampires doesn’t need to be all male either (sadly), however this will clearly setup any romantic storylines.

Lost Boys vampire wishlist

The look: I’m not expecting 80s punk bikers to be cast as the vampires. There was certainly something hot, dangerous and non-conformist about David, Paul, Dwayne and Marco. They were unbelievably sexy, though not all ridiculously hot (only two were models). They should still stand out now, but also carry enough confidence and contemporary style to draw in the older sibling (the Michael character). Sure I dream of a certain amount of leather (in the trousers department), however there could be other non-conforming ways of dressing and behaving.

Sexuality

It has been said a number of times that the character of Sam was probably gay. In this age the show can not possibly avoid having some queer characters, and more than one. Either sibling should be gay. One or more of the vampires should be gay, or better yet pan. And there should be some fucking kissing, between fanged vampires or a vampire and mortal.

The vampire

The original gang were scary and unbelievably sexy. There was a raw animalism to the vampires sleek faces and eye-teeth fangs. There was no subtly about those fangs. Buffy the Vampire Slayer vampires came close, even on tv where the makeup process might be rushed. I just don’t want to see more Vampire Diaries style vampires with tiny fangs barely ever seen. Some of the best scenes for the movie were those when the vampires were fanged.

Murdering vampires

While I was not unset when Max was killed off, the murdering of those other younger, hotter vampires was completely unacceptable, especially since killing David had no effect for Michael (and I would argue Michael killing David counted as his first kill). Obviously I don’t want some silly comedy where the vampire murders are incapable of carrying out the killing, constantly being foiled. But some restrain would be good, especially for the sake of the series longevity. Near misses can be acceptable… it did seem too easy for the Frog Brothers and Sam (and Michael, and grandpa’s driving/aim).

Faith in the CW

I’ll be honest, I gave up on the Vampire Diaries, Originals and the other one. Apparently Supernatural had some vampire episodes which I had trouble getting into. Honestly, gives us some Lana Lang as a vampire in Smallville, or I don’t know… actual Lost-fucking-boys-vampires from the movies. This doesn’t need to be well-written romantic drama; the wasn’t the original film. So my biggest worry with this production will be in how the CW handles it. MTV gave us some amazing horror, drama, love, comedic moments in Teen Wolf… everything was so much better (including the young hot gays) with the exception of no vampires.

The casting

Speaking of Teen Wolf, while I’m disappointed Tyler Posey won’t be playing Michael (I would really like someone to leak the first pilot), the current cast is looking somewhat promising. Branden Cook and Lincoln Younes both seem like decent and handsome actors. Photos of them feature far too much facial hair which will hopefully be removed for filming. The casting isn’t too Disney thankfully, but still somewhat safe. Australian Younes has a soap background, but Home & Away has probably cast every great Australian actor to leave that continent, which is a good reflection. Cook (and there are a few Branden Cook actors) also seems like a good pick so far… we’ll see who will join the cast as his brother.

Rio Mangini who played McQuaid in the one series show Everything Sucks was to play Sam. He’s likely to have been recast, though he would have made a good vampire (though that didn’t happen in the film, it’s worth exploring in the series).

In conclusion. Fangs. Hot vampires. Fangs. Add some more hot vampires. Give them fangs. Don’t kill all of the hot fanged vampires.

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