Mention the Twilight series to Corey Feldman and he’ll feign ignorance. “Never heard of it,” he says, brow furrowed under shaggy black hair. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Is that a comic book or a kids’ cartoon?” Then the laugh comes. “Just joking.”
With his own new vampire movie coming out, Lost Boys: the Thirst, Feldman recognizes the importance of that other bloodsucking franchise.
“What I say is let them keep making movies because it’s keeping us in business,” he says. “The more romance novelists there are out there making romanticized ideas of vampirism for the kids, the more people want to see a real action movie putting the bad guys where they belong.”
He’s also more than a little protective of the legacy of the first Lost Boys film, especially with the genre’s current resurgence. “I remember it really being hailed as the original rock-and-roll vampire movie,” he says.
“I’ll never forget being at the premiere where I had invited Sam Kinison. I really wanted to gauge his perception of it because he was so contemporary and cutting edge at the time — he really had his finger on the pulse of what was happening. So he was sitting right in front of me at the premiere, and he kept screaming during the whole movie, like, ‘Dude! This movie rocks! F— yeah!’”
The Thirst marks Feldman’s third Lost Boys film, after Joel Schumacher’s 1987 original, which featured Feldman and Jamison Newlander as teenage self-professed vampire hunters the Frog brothers, and the 2008 sequel, Lost Boys: the Tribe.
“It felt good and it still feels good,” Feldman says of reuniting with Newlander. “It’s kind of like re-engaging in an old marriage. It’s awkward, it’s uncomfortable, but something about it still works. And then you feel kind of guilty afterward, like, ‘Did I really mean to do that?’”
The new film is also the Frog brothers’ chance to take centre stage, though Feldman’s character isn’t in the best of shape. “He’s disheveled, disabled, abandoned and alone,” he explains. “He’s living in a trailer, he’s lost everything in his life that’s dear to him, and he’s really disconnected from the rest of the world.
That’s where we find him at the beginning of this film. It’s not too difficult to relate to for Feldman, who’s had his own ups and downs in the past 23 years, including the loss last year of best friend and Lost Boys co-star Corey Haim.
But Feldman is looking forward, not back — as is the franchise, he insists. “We wanted to make sure that we keep it contemporary,” he says.
“(In the Tribe) we had the X factor. They were all about extreme sports and motorcycles and skateboards and surfboards and YouTube and Girls Gone Wild and cell phones and video cameras.
“Whereas now it’s really more about the ravers and designer drugs and laser shows and all that kind of stuff that kids can really relate with today. That’s what we think the vampires would be doing if they were turning into vampires today.”
