Schumacher of McCarter. “I’d never done
it in my life, and never again. I’m ashamed of it.
It’s outrageous — he should have reported me,
I should have been up on charges. But I’ve
apologised many, many times.” For the next
take, McCarter was terrifying.
Patric had also been furious. He’d hesitated
about signing up in the first place, concerned
that it would be an exploitation film, but had
been promised by Schumacher that he wouldn’t
have to wear monster make-up. Now, though, the
ending had been rewritten and, having to fully
vamp out to attack David, Patric was indeed
required to endure prosthetics. “I felt terrible,”
says Schumacher. “I don’t lie to actors.” But
things had changed. An enraged Patric refused
to do it, complaining to his manager that he’d
been lied to, and told Schumacher he wouldn’t
come to work. Finally, he was encouraged
to return by Warner Bros., and put in an
appropriately aggressive performance.
The Lost Boyswas in the can.SCHUMACHER KNEW THE FILM
had worked when, at the fi rst test screening,
some “surf punks” in the cinema got so excited
during the scene in which the vampires carry
out a violent beach massacre, they tore up the
cinema seats and threw the stuffi ng around.
“They were screaming and yelling. That
screening was a rock concert, it was balls out,”
says the director. “I wasn’t ready for it. Andexhaustive book about the film,Lost In The
Shadows, Feldman talks remorsefully of messing
up on set one day because he’d been using cocaine
the night before. Schumacher doesn’t remember
this, but spoke with him on set. “I didn’t scream
at him because I know fi rst-hand what a disease
that is,” he says. “Corey Feldman really made it
through. God bless him.” Haim, tragically, did
not, dying in 2010 at just 38 years old.
“There were some troubled youths on the
fi lm,” says Schumacher. “So maybe a troubled
director was perfect!” The director was, though,
on good form throughout the shoot, bar some
volume. He was, said Jason Patric, “a bit of
a screamer at times”. Schumacher takes the
stand. “We had huge sets,” he says. “I had to yell
at the top of my lungs, I wasn’t just screaming at
everyone making the movie, the crew would have
quit! But of course, a lot of times I had to shout.
We were making stuff up as we went along.
Everybody has their ‘I got shouted at by Joel
Schumacher’ story. Guilty!”
There were some hairy moments. During the
climactic scene in which Brooke McCarter’s
vampire Paul attacks the Frog brothers in the
bathroom, McCarter couldn’t get it right, not
being frightening enough when he burst into the
room. “His character was a real skateboard surfer,”
says Schumacher, “and I think Brooke was...deep
in the role, let’s say.” Chapman was running around
with a huge Panavision camera on his shoulder,
time was short because of the legal constrictions
for child actors, and things got...heated.
“I was so frustrated, and I just slapped him
and pushed the door in front of him,” saysonto the stage, only to be shoved offby
cinematographer Michael Chapman, who didn’t
want his shot ruined. And the partying in the
nearby Santa Cruz Holiday Inn, where almost all
of the cast and crew were shacked up, was just as
riotous. Alex Winter, who played vampire Marko,
has described it as a rave, with “crazy shit” going
on in every room. Schumacher’s lips are sealed.
“Take a bunch of 13-year-olds and a bunch of
18-year-olds and put them in a hotel,” he says.
“Of course there had to be chaperones for the
13-year-olds, but... anyway, I’m not going to say
another word.”
An electricity rippled through the cast,
with some of the on-screen dynamics mirrored
on set. Sutherland was a natural-born partier,
instinctively becoming the leader of the lost
boys off -camera, and unwittingly infl uencing
his outfi t when, showing off for a young lady
who caught his eye during the fi rst night of
the shoot, he lost control of the dirt bike on
the beach, crashing. With his left wrist badly
broken, Schumacher just put him in black
gloves for the production.
Meanwhile, 20-year-old Jason Patric
played big brother to his on-screen little brother,
the 14-year-old Corey Haim, whose life was
“diffi cult”, says Schumacher. “He came from a
home life that I would not have chosen to come
from. He needed a big brother, and Jason was so
wonderful with him. I think their aff ection for
each other shows up on fi lm.” The 14-year-old
Corey Feldman, who played vampire hunter
Edgar Frog, also had problems, and has spoken of
this being a painful time in his life. In Paul Davis’
Top: Jami Gertz as “half-vampire” Star. Top right: Kiefer Sutherland fl exes his talons in a make-up
chair. Above: The Boys channel their inner bats in their subterranean lair. Right: Corey Haim as
Sam and Jason Patric as his big brother, Michael. The pair had a similar bond off screen.