What's wrong with The Lost Boys: The Tribe
I think I've figured out what bothered me about The Lost Boys: The Tribe. As well as not being a Schumacher movie, it's essentially 90 minutes of really bad fanfiction with a mediocre soundtrack.
...Actually, no. Even some badfic is better than what we got in the movie. The first one was scary without being terrifying, colorful, mystical, and above all funny. It's a comic book come to life, and yet it works. Maybe that's because Schumacher works with a Hitchcockian principle: scare the audience silly, but remember to let them laugh.
The new movie was not terrifying, colorful, or mystical, and it wasn't funny in any good way. The plot was thinner than paper (as opposed to the only paper-thin plot (and perfectly fine metaphors) of The Lost Boys), and the deaths of the new Pack (the "Tribe", as they call themselves) weren't clever, surprising, silly, or in any way horrifying. It was impossible to feel empathy for Edgar, or the Young Emersons, or the Tribe.
Furthermore, the setting was perfect; a summer tourists' town, gone to seed and in the off-season. It was utterly ideal, and utterly wasted. The only shot anywhere near interesting in the town was that of the saxaphone player well past his prime. There wasn't any boarded-up boardwalk, there wasn't any merry-go-round falling into the sea... come on, people! How hard is it to find decrepit boardwalks in the US? There are abandoned amusement parks out the wazoo! The "now" Santa Carla gets my vote for "The Most Underused Set Ever".
And the costumes... the costumes were bland to the extreme. They weren't particularly "surfer", they didn't have any of the trashy glamour of the first movie's costumes, and they didn't give off any "alluring" or "dangerous" vibes, either.
Practically the only thing "right" about the movie was the "Cry Little Sister" cover and sound cues, and even those were just "nice", not "great".
Thumbs down as a sequel to what was a great teen horror movie, and a thousand tears for what could have been.
...Actually, no. Even some badfic is better than what we got in the movie. The first one was scary without being terrifying, colorful, mystical, and above all funny. It's a comic book come to life, and yet it works. Maybe that's because Schumacher works with a Hitchcockian principle: scare the audience silly, but remember to let them laugh.
The new movie was not terrifying, colorful, or mystical, and it wasn't funny in any good way. The plot was thinner than paper (as opposed to the only paper-thin plot (and perfectly fine metaphors) of The Lost Boys), and the deaths of the new Pack (the "Tribe", as they call themselves) weren't clever, surprising, silly, or in any way horrifying. It was impossible to feel empathy for Edgar, or the Young Emersons, or the Tribe.
Furthermore, the setting was perfect; a summer tourists' town, gone to seed and in the off-season. It was utterly ideal, and utterly wasted. The only shot anywhere near interesting in the town was that of the saxaphone player well past his prime. There wasn't any boarded-up boardwalk, there wasn't any merry-go-round falling into the sea... come on, people! How hard is it to find decrepit boardwalks in the US? There are abandoned amusement parks out the wazoo! The "now" Santa Carla gets my vote for "The Most Underused Set Ever".
And the costumes... the costumes were bland to the extreme. They weren't particularly "surfer", they didn't have any of the trashy glamour of the first movie's costumes, and they didn't give off any "alluring" or "dangerous" vibes, either.
Practically the only thing "right" about the movie was the "Cry Little Sister" cover and sound cues, and even those were just "nice", not "great".
Thumbs down as a sequel to what was a great teen horror movie, and a thousand tears for what could have been.