I was definitely curious to catch this the moment I got wind of it. I was all the more interested after the episode on The Two Coreys dealt with it. Then, when it showed up on Netflix, and it listed Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, I was stoked. This is like a Direct to Video Connoisseur's dream-- potentially.
Lost Boys: The Tribe takes place in the current, where a disgraced surfer and his sister move out to Cali to start a new life. They meet up with some vampires and Corey Feldman, reprising his role as Edgar Frog. The sister drank some blood from the head vampire, and the only way to keep her from being a vampire is to kill the head vamp before she feeds. Not an easy task, but the surfer dude wants to save his sister, and Feldman can't stand vampires, so they get down to business to take care of things. Haim is only in it in a short scene during the credits, and two deleted scenes.
You know, this wasn't half bad. Okay, the first thirty minutes kind of sucked. Then Feldman shows up, talking in a fake, tongue-in-cheek, gruff voice, and the movie changes from there. Tons of blood, which I loved. A fair amount of Feldman, which was good. And the film seemed to have a sense of humor, which worked. If you can make it through the first thirty, then next hour's not bad.
Feldman was good in this. It takes a second to realize the gruff voice is a put-on. I can understand, though, if someone is annoyed by it, so proceed at your own peril. On The Two Coreys, he made it sound like he was only offered a cameo, but he's in it a fair amount. Haim, on the other hand, is pretty much not in it, and I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. In the two deleted scenes that have him, his acting is pretty bad. He's like an athlete hosting Saturday Night Live. That's kind of disappointing. Hopefully he'll be better in the future.
The head bad guy was Angus Sutherland, Donald's son, and Kiefer's half brother. I'm not sure if they used him because of the connection with the earlier film, but he was horrible. When he talked, I thought maybe he was French or something, and English was his second language. I read nothing on imdb to suggest that, though, so that just means he sounded like a moron. His speech was kind of slurred and the words all ran together, like he might have been a glue sniffer at one time. What kind of a head bad guy is that?
The hero was played by some dude that was Stiffler's brother in one of the American Pie direct to video sequels. His little sister is played by the girl that replaced the main girl on The OC. One thing that's interesting is that she's like a year older than him, but is supposed to be younger and needing his protection. As a main protagonist, he wasn't that great, and it begs the question: why was he cast at all? It didn't seem like Haim and Feldman were that busy.
And that brings me to my final point. Sure, this movie was fun after it got going at the 30 minute mark, but after it was all over, I found myself wondering why it was ever made. This was the same feeling I had after leaving the theater when Star Wars I came out. I mean, I understand wanting to trade on the Lost Boys name to make some cash in the DTV market, but you had Feldman and Haim right there, why not make a real sequel? I guess there's supposed to be a third one that rectifies that issue, so I don't know.
You can rent this. It's really not that bad. Feldman's good in it, so if you like him like I do, that's a decent reason. If you were really into the first one, you may not like this at all, though. It tries to tie things in, like the Sisters of Mercy song, which seems kind of forced to me, and might piss off a die-hard. I know this review sounds kind of wishy-washy, and I apologize for that. I guess I liked it, but I'm not sure I recommend it.
For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1031254/
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