What The Lost Boys Remake Can Learn From The Fright Night Remake
1980s vampire classic The Lost Boys is about to get a movie remake, and there are a few pointers it could take from 2011's Fright Night redo. While remakes have been a thing since the early days of cinema, there's been a clear uptick in them since the turn of the 21st century. This has especially been true for the horror genre, with just about every classic genre movie having been remade or rebooted.
Surprisingly, considering it was a critical and commercial hit in 1987, The Lost Boys hasn't been one of the horror classics to be reinvented for a new generation. The most that's happened with the property, outside of some comic books, was the creation of two direct-to-video sequels, which both quietly came and went. The CW even spent the better part of five years trying to make The Lost Boys a TV show, to no avail.
That's finally set to change with The Lost Boys remake, with A Quiet Place's Noah Jupe and IT's Jaeden Martell cast as the leads. It's unclear if their characters will be ported from the original - the Frog Brothers would seem like a good fit for them - but either way, Warner Bros. seems ready to move forward. While many horror remakes have left a sour taste in fans' mouths, if The Lost Boys wants to avoid that fate, it could actually look to the 2011 remake of Fright Night for inspiration. That's not to say the Fright Night remake is amazing or betters the original, as it certainly doesn't.
But as horror remakes go, and famous vampire movies, in particular, Fright Night 2011 was a breath of fresh air. While not a hit, it earned a solid 72 percent from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and surprised many skeptical fans by being a pretty fun time. Fright Night accomplished this by pulling off a kind of balancing act that a lot of the best remakes manage. It took the basic premise and plot points from the original but updated them for modern times, and wasn't afraid to change up the characters and do its own thing with them. One of the reasons so many bemoan remakes is the feeling of "been there, done that" that comes with seeing the same stories play out over and over.
Fright Night 2011 smartly reinvents the characters of Jerry Dandridge and Peter Vincent and carries its own more punk rock attitude, all while paying hilarious tribute to the original via elements like Colin Farrell's Jerry killing Chris Sarandon. The Lost Boys remake would be wise to try and do something similar, by retaining the set-up and basic plot beats but updating everything else for modern audiences, while not being hesitant to put a new spin on David, Michael, and Star. Products of the 1980s rarely work when transplanted wholesale to the present day, and Warner Bros. needs to realize that, making a Lost Boys evolution and not a mere retread. The remake probably won't best the original, but it could stand beside it like the 2011 Fright Night.
Source: Screenrant
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