The Lost Boys (1987)
Lost Boys: The Tribe (2008)
Lost Boys: The Thirst (2010)
Be honest. I mean really. Who did NOT see the first movie when it came out? I remember it being the coolest movie around - of course not scary to me at all, but really neat. The story line was obviously geared toward the young crowd (without the sparkling and that's all I'm going to say about that) and while they were horrific monsters, the movie was also a lot of fun.
The Lost Boys: Michael Emerson (Jason Patric) and his younger brother, Sam (Corey Haim), move to Santa Carla, plagued by gang activity and unexplained disappearances. They move in with their grandfather, a real grouch into Dr. Pepper and stuffing small animals. Max, your typical geez live sucks teen is instantly bored and cruises the boardwalk in search of something fun to do. He sees a girl, Star (Jami Gertz, a real hottie in the 80's) but she's with David (Kiefer Sutherland, perfectly sexy and dangerous at the same time), who has a crew of bikers that terrorize the nightlife. Sam also looks for something to do and discovers a comic book shop basically run by the Frog brothers, Edgar and Alan (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander) who warn him about all the vampires around. Sam scoffs even though they insist he take some comics to learn about the ways of the vampire (better than stuffy old books I guess).
Michael keeps trying to impress Star, and gets his own motorcycle. David challenges him to a race which ends when he almost goes off a cliff. Seemingly passing their test he's invited to their hangout, a hotel sunken into the beach, where they drink wine (but you know... vampires don't drink... wine). They then look for kicks by hanging off an elevated train track while the train passes overhead. Then one by one the others let go, disappearing into the fog below. Michael holds on as long as he can, but eventually drops, screaming. He realizes he is not falling, but kind of floating. He screams some more. And wakes up in his bed, suddenly very sensitive to sunlight.
As one would figure, Michael starts to turn and Sam starts to believe. Star comes to the house but Michael won't let her in, and from his second story bedroom window tells her to go away. She suddenly appears, floating, at the window. She explains that they are both only half-turned, since neither of them has killed anyone yet. There's a subplot of the mother of the two getting a job and developing a relationship with a seeming square named Max, and a couple of humorous moments, such as when Michael wakes and realizes he's stuck against the ceiling. He yells for Sam to come help him down.
So both brothers are convinced that the vampires need to go away and there's only one person - err two people that can help them - the Frog brothers. A weakening Michael leads Sam and the Frog brothers to the gang's lair, where they intend to kill the vampires in their sleep. The Frog brothers are stunned and terrified to discover that the vampires do not sleep in coffins, but hang from the ceiling like roosting bats. The staking of one vampire, Marko (Alex Winter, also known as Bill from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure) awakens David and the two others, and the boys barely escape with their lives, managing to rescue Star and Laddie, a recently abducted half-vampire child. 
That night they arm themselves with weapons that are, yes you guessed it, always effective on Catholic vampires. The only duh. I wish they would think of something else, just once. Each vampire is killed in a spectacular and gory fashion. Michael faces off with David, and ultimately impales him on a pair of mounted deer antlers. However, Michael, Star and Laddie do not transform back to normal with David's death, as they had hoped. Their mother returns home with her new boyfriend Max and it is revealed that he is the head vampire. Just as he is about to bite the mother to prevent him from murdering her children, the grandfather rams his jeep into the house with a fence post on top, impaling Max and making him explode. Everyone then returns to normal. The film ends with Grandpa calmly retrieving a drink from the fridge, seemingly oblivious to the carnage around him. He then declares, "One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach...all the damn vampires".
Now the question 'Why didn't David explode or melt or burn up like the other vampires?' can be answered simply. The makers of the film were hoping for a quick sequel. David's character would have been revealed not to be dead, the antlers hadn't pierced his heart. But despite several tries, alas, it was not to be. Instead fast forward a whole heck of a long time to:
Lost Boys: The Tribe: What is the absolute worst way to make a sequel to a very popular movie? Well, first don't have anybody from the first movie (except for Corey Feldman, who is again Edgar Frog) and for the head vampire, don't use Kiefer Sutherland, use his half brother Angus. Huh? Wow, this isn't going to go well, is it? No. I can tell you it does not.
We start with a bunch of punk surfers who want to hit the high tide at night. They trespass on private property, and before they can begin are confronted by the owner (Tom Savini in a cameo for some ungodly reason). They square off - Tom reveals himself to be a vampire but then so do the surfers - and there's a lot more of them. They quickly tear him apart and his role is over. Good for him. Chris Emerson (Tad Hilgenbrink), a young disgraced former surfing pro, and his younger sister Nicole (Autumn Reeser) move to Luna Bay. Chris leaves his address at the home of Edgar Frog, the town's surfboard shaper, in hopes of getting a job. Chris is approached at their new home by former pro surfer Shane Powers (Angus Sutherland), who invites him to a party that night.
Chris and Nicole go to the party, where Shane and his tribe are entertaining themselves with the human guests. Chris showers with a sexy girl named Lisa (that was pretty damn quick), and Shane gets Nicole alone, chats with her for a bit, and then tricks her into drinking his blood. When Chris learns that Nicole has been with Shane, he angrily, and protectively, takes her home, where she begins to manifest vampiric strength and rage. But before she hurts Chris, she is knocked out by Edgar, who reveals that he is a vampire hunter, and Nicole has been infected with vampirism. Chris throws Edgar out of the house. Then, Lisa shows up and pretends to chat with Chris for a bit before she finally tries to seduce and feed on him. In fending her off, he accidentally impales her on a mounted rack of antlers, killing her explosively. So he asks Edgar what to do to get his sister back. And here we go. 
We only have Edgar - he makes mention of losing his brother to the vampires (not explained, we're not really interested anyway) so off they go. They decide to try and trick Shane by having Chris pretend to join them and he drinks Shane's blood (not explained how he got to be number one vampire but...) and, with his new strength he and Edgar plows through the vampire group in typical and seen-it-before fashion. Nicole finally gets some guts and kills Shane, so everyone is happy - except for us. We really REALLY didn't need this. Oh and what the hell was up with Feldman's voice? He talked as if he smoked ten packs of cigarettes a day. Yeesh.
Lost Boys: The Thirst (2010): Geez, this just needed to stop while they were way ahead and especially after the second lukewarm sequel. Now remember Edgar Frog says his brother got killed in the sequel? Well in this one, somehow his brother is back and they're hunting wabbits.... I mean they're hunting vampires. And... that's pretty much it. Not going to even try to get through this one, sorry.
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