With the TWILIGHT about to descend on DVD, This Weekend’s Film Festival looks at good young vampire films. I guess young vampire is an oxymoron though. Young-looking vampires would be a more accurate statement. The opening film made my best films of 2008 list. There’s also a tightly written anime tale. A twist on the vampire genre from horror master George A. Romero. The quintessential ’80s young vamp film, which originated the term “vamp out.” And we close with one of the best child vampires in movie history. So put your feet up and pour yourself a glass of red wine, but if you don’t drink wine then you might be too young or just right for this week’s lineup.
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Movies love affair with the vampire stretches back to the earliest days of the cinema. Various directors have put their stamp on the horror subgenre and when it comes to pop culture vamps few films exceed THE LOST BOYS in popularity. So why does Joel Schumacher’s fairly standard vampire flick have such staying power? Why does it float above so many others like it? The cast. They were good then and now the film stands as a time capsule for a period in film history.

Michael Emerson (Jason Patric, RUSH) moves with his recently divorced mother Lucy (Dianne Wiest, HANNAH AND HER SISTERS) and little brother Sam (Corey Haim, LUCAS) to live with his hippie grandpa (Barnard Hughes, TRON) in Santa Carla, the murder capitol of the U.S. On the boardwalk, he is smitten by Star (Jami Gertz, 1992’s JERSEY GIRL), a street kid who hangs with a gang of punked out lost boys, lead by David (Kiefer Sutherland, TV’s 24). Not wanting to look like a wuss, Michael takes David’s increasingly dangerous challenges. In the meantime, Sam meets the Frog Brothers, Edgar (Corey Feldman, DREAM A LITTLE DREAM) and Alan (Jamison Newlander, 1988’s THE BLOB), at comic book shop, where they warn the new kid in town to read up on vampires, because it could save his life. At first Sam doesn’t believe in bloodsuckers, but when it turns out that Michael has been tricked into drinking blood, he might have Dracula living in the next room.
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Coming at the height of the first wave of John Travolta’s career, the hit romance made line dancing, rodeo, cowboy hats and country music popular. Travolta’s character Bud could be a cousin of his Tony Manero character from SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. They’re both working class young men who find self worth in their public hobbies. Their treatment of women is questionable at best. And when is comes to clearing a dance floor few are better.

Travolta’s Bud gets married young to Sissy (Debra Winger, TERMS OF ENDEARMENT), but Sissy isn’t the kind of wife he imagined. She doesn’t cook or clean and doesn’t like being told what to do. Bud works the oil refinery during day and hangs out at the county bar at night. When their favorite watering hole gets a mechanical bull, Bud gets hooked, but he doesn’t like it when Sissy wants to ride too. Ex-con Wes (Scott Glenn, THE RIGHT STUFF) has no problem showing Sissy how to ride and soon Bud and his wife are on the rocks and Bud’s in the arms of the slumming rich girl Pam (Madolyn Smith Osborne, FUNNY FARM). When the bar announces a bull-riding contest, Bud decides to train with his uncle Bob (Barry Corbin, TV’s NORTHERN EXPOSURE) to beat the arrogant Wes, who has now made Sissy his woman.
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Movie nerds are supposed to be misunderstood, awkward people, but likeable. Drew Barrymore plays her lead character in NEVER BEEN KISSED with awkwardness to spare, but also with a huge dose of annoying. There are reasons why some nerds are not liked, Barrymore’s Josie Geller reminds us of them all.

Josie is a copy editor at the Chicago Sun-Times. I wonder if this was done to try and butter up Roger Ebert for a good review? I guess, it worked; it’s the only thing that explains his three star review of this junk. Anyways, Josie really wants to be a reporter, but Gus the editor (John C. Reilly, CHICAGO) doesn’t think she has the strength to be a hardnosed journalist. But then in an editorial meeting, unpredictable publisher Rigfort (Garry Marshall, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN) randomly picks Josie to go undercover as the high school student to discover what the modern teen is really like. When Josie tells her slacker brother Rob (David Arquette, SCREAM) what her assignment is, he reminds her that high school was hell for her. And sure enough, Josie has the same set of social skills she had back then. A threesome of popular girls ridicules her and the big man on campus Guy (Jeremy Jordan, BIO-DOME) makes joke out of her, until Rob poses as a student and makes her popular.
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