“Kill your brother. You’ll feel better.” Such is the self-assured advice of Mr. Alan Frog (Jamison Newlander), one-half of the Frog Brothers, the Santa Carla vampire-killing duo from Joel Schumacher’s 1987 glampire flick, The Lost Boys. He is addressing Sam (Corey Haim), the new kid in town who has noticed his brother Michael (Jason Patric) suffering some very strange symptoms, including staying up late at night, showing a translucent reflection, and having the ability to uncontrollably float past Sam’s room.
Equipped with little more than two fingers slapped together in a makeshift crucifix, Sam is clearly in over his head. Thankfully, the Frog Brothers are more than happy to impart on Sam their collective wisdom on vampires, which you might also know as night crawlers, bloodsuckers, or even el vampiro. Their overzealous need to share this knowledge would be right at home in a horror convention, because at their core, the Frog Brothers are really just intense genre fans.
When we first meet Edgar (Corey Feldman) and Alan Frog, they’re stalking Sam in their parents’ comic book shop, waiting for the opportunity to provide some unsolicited vampire knowledge. After only a few moments of scoping out Sam’s “civilian wardrobe” and trading comic book bona fides, the Frogs are all too eager to thrust a comic book called Destroy All Vampires into his hands, even after he has said pretty flatly that he doesn’t like horror comics. But that doesn’t matter to the Frog Brothers, who are socially awkward, oddly dressed weirdos who just can’t wait to make you look at something grotesque. I’ve basically just described myself at age 15.
The main difference between them and us average horror geeks is that in Santa Carla, their knowledge has just as much to do with survival as it does with the inherent love of the subject matter. Vampires, and by extension horror, aren’t just some fun way to pass the time. It’s become their identity and, much like Suicide from Return of the Living Dead, “This is a way of life.”
It’s pretty evident, however, that the Frog Brothers’ expertise with vampires is largely theoretical. They may have a wealth of (surprisingly accurate) vampire comic books, but all of this knowledge and bravado pretty much flies out the window after they kill their first bloodsucker—poor Marko (Alex Winter)—and find themselves face-to-face with three more very pissed-off members of the undead. It’s at this point in the movie that we remember that these guys are just kids, and part of what I love about the performances by Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander is their ability to turn on a dime, where one second they’re cracking one-liners in anticipation of what I can only imagine is their first kill, and the next they’re screaming in absolute terror as a vamped-out David (Kiefer Sutherland) tries to drag them back into his lair.
What I also love, though, is that after their initial freak-out, the Frog Brothers don’t just tuck tail and run. They had every opportunity to get the hell out of Santa Carla before sundown, but even after seeing the reality of what they were facing, they stayed behind to fight. This being an ’80s movie, they even take part in a montage that blends the thrill of an impending fight (sharpening of stakes, collection of holy water, etc.) with the silliness that comes from the fact that, again, these are teenagers transporting supplies via bicycles and using canteens and squirt guns for the holy water).
As we get to the climactic showdown, the Frog Brothers do again seem to know their stuff, with Edgar warning the group, “When a vampire bites it, it's never a pretty sight. No two bloodsuckers go the same way. Some yell and scream, some go quietly, some explode, some implode, but all will try to take you with them.” Virtually every part of that warning comes to fruition in the final scenes. Vampire Dwayne (Billy Wirth) does indeed explode, Paul’s (Brooke McCarter) blood virtually destroys the entire plumbing system, and David, well... he actually does go relatively quietly—alas, even the most thorough horror experts have gaps in their knowledge. Unfortunately, none of the Frog Brothers’ comics mentioned that inviting a vampire into your house renders you powerless, leading to a close call with head vampire Max (Edward Herrmann). But hey, like I said, we all have our blind spots.
While the Frog Brothers’ knowledge of vampires has the occasional glitch, their tactical skills are somewhat lacking. While Sam is taking out vampires with nothing more than a bow, arrow, and stereo, Edgar and Alan only manage to get in a few splashes of holy water in their encounter with the undead before the good dog Nanook comes in to save the day. This fits in with the horror geek M.O. pretty well. After all, I’ll tell you anything you need to know about how to kill any manner of vampire, werewolf, or zombie, but put one in front of me and there’s likely to be no small amount of shrieking and flailing.
Obviously, horror is a lot more fun when it’s not standing three feet in front of your face with rage in its eyes and blood dripping from its mouth. But given their trial by fangs, the Frog Brothers made out better than we might have done in their place. Sure, maybe they’re more talk than action, but in a movie featuring ruthless vampires, these horror lovers make it to the end without getting themselves or anyone else (on their side) killed. I’m going to chalk that up as a win for us horror nerds.
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Horror movies have been a part of Bryan’s life as far back as he can remember. While families were watching E.T. and going to Disneyland, Bryan and his mom were watching Nightmare on Elm Street and he was dragging his dad to go to the local haunted hayride.
He loves everything about the horror community, particularly his fellow fans. He’s just as happy listening to someone talk about their favorite horror flick as he is watching his own, which include Hellraiser, Phantasm, Stir of Echoes, and just about every Friday the 13th movie ever made, which the exception of part VIII because that movie is terrible.
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