I live for moments like these, and I can’t help my exuberance.  I’ve been left alone at the helm of the Robot, and like a little kid tearing a piece of wrapping paper, I’m on fire.  So, when I discovered that ALL THREE of the The Lost Boys franchise movies were available on Netflix ‘Watch Instantly,’ I was inspired to pull a stunt like this.

Now, we’ve gained a lot of new readers since this ran on November 1st of last year, and I wouldn’t dream of leaving them out of the loop, especially if it has to do with Lost Boys shite.  And even though the second volume(The Tribe) is a total tosser, number three is a teen screams, B movie triumph.

So, in celebration of the Netflix gods making the trilogy available, I offer a 40ozReplay review of: The Lost Boys III:  The Thirst.  And if you’re really having trouble getting motivated, just watch them in sequence, doing a shot every time a clever quip is dropped by anyone named Corey (eg. “Death by Stereo!” or “My Brother: a shit sucking vampire!”)

Here we go; the 40ozReplay of

Lost Boys 3 – The Thirst

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Okay, okay, you can stop rolling you eyes, now.  If anyone subjected themselves to the half-assed generational reach that was Lost Boys 2 you probably thought the Lost Boys franchise were dead.  I mean Corey Haim is, quite literally,  dead and gone, Corey Feldman is looking more and more like Ozzy Osbourne by the minute, and who cares,  anyways?  Well, Executive Producer Feldman slammed one more round into the chamber, and with the help of a rag-tag team of no-name actors, created this straight to Blu-Ray schlock cinema masterpiece, breathing new life into a dead – or should I say undead – franchise (har dee har).

Feldman (Lost Boys, Stand by Me) plays Edgar Frog, a down and out vampire hunter whose trailer home has been repossessed by the bank.  Out of work and out of luck, he’s contacted by a famous vampire novelist Gwen Lieber (played by Tanit Phoenix – Don’t worry, she’s not in anything you’ve seen) to find her brother who’s been kidnapped by DJ X (Seb Castang).  It turns out this famous DJ holds raves at undisclosed locations, wherein a new designer drug – dubbed The Thirst – is being distributed.  But the new drug isn’t a drug at all, it’s vampire blood, turning it’s victims into half vampires.  Edgar and a new team of vampire slayers team up with Edgar’s brother Allen, played by Jamison Newlander (Lost Boys, The Blob), who has also been a victim of The Thirst and is now a half vampire, himself.  The collective slashes their way through legions of the undead, armed with an all new, heavy arsenal of vampire slaying weapons with the intent of ridding the world of vampires and saving brother Allen from a bloodsucking fate.

The film is threaded with self-deprecating undercuts, not only poking fun at the Lost Boys themselves, but the vampire afluenza of modern pop culture.   The novelist turns out a series of books resembling  the Twilight series (“Your books suck!”), Feldman’s character rips on reality TV (The Two Corey’s anyone?), and the actors continually slam their cringe-worthy lines immediately after delivering them.  But every cringe is met with a laugh, while ass-kickings are dealt out with all the bloody fervor of a Dusk Till Dawn or a Blade Trinity. The saving grace of this film is the light-hearted manner by which the cast and director Dario Piana approach every scene; the over-acting is intentional and more than appropriate.

The Thirst is not a movie to be taken seriously.  Rather, it’s a crazy romp through blood, gore, and tongue-in-cheek humour.  In the words of Edgar Frog, The Thirst  turns the Lost Boys series from tepid “holy water into holy slaughter.”  So, if you can allow yourself to enjoy the schlock, this film  – in all its B movie splendor – you might just find yourself kind of loving it.

Grade: B+

-Miles Christopher