Wolff rating: NOT BAD
Plot summary: Two new kids move into a Santa-Cruz-like neighborhood, but find out it's the muder capital of the world.
Biased, pithy comments: Without giving too much of the MacGuffin away, this is sort of a pre-Buffy teenager vampire flick from a decade earlier. Producer Richard Donner (of ``Lethal Weapon'' fame) and Schumacher serve up a tasty low-budget stew of action and small comedy, but unfortunately the film centers around the wooden Patric as the troubled fellow who gets a bit of a bite. Likewise, the beautiful Gertz is both given nothing and provides nothing as the love interest. Instead, Haim, Sutherland, and an impossibly young Feldman steal the show, but what have they stolen? Like Schumacher's ``Batman Forever,'' it's a stylish, well-shot action fest with not much soul, at times confused and featuring leaden acting. I won't say it's dull, but I was left wishing there had been more than just flash.
Other Notes: Strangely, I read the cheesy movie-to-novel conversion 13 years before I saw the movie, and I still remember that the novel had a lot more depth and made more sense. ``Batman Forever'' was once called the ``gayest movie in Hollywood,'' and I think I can safely say that this film also contributes to Schumacher's penchant for homoeroticism; Gertz is pretty but remote, while Sutherland and his. . .uh. . .boys seem to have a lot more love on for Patric. I will say this is one movie from the eighties that gives only a few of its characters then-stylish clothing for clownish purposes, and thus makes this much less of a period piece as other 80s horror films.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Dianne Wiest, Barnard Hughes, Kiefer Sutherland, Jami Gertz, Corey Feldman.
Directed by: Joel Schumacher