Warner Bros Pictures, 1987

starring: Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, Barnard Hughes, Jamison Newlander, Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland and Dianne Wiest
directed by: Joel Schumacher

Editor’s note: Our ever-reliable video vault columnist, Larry Clow, was unable to submit a review this week. Guest writer Matt Kanner therefore humbly ventures into the vault to explore the film relics therein.

the plot: When brothers Michael and Sam move from Phoenix to Santa Clara, California, with their recently divorced mother (Wiest) and settle in with their eccentric grandfather, they quickly notice something strange about the city. Not only does grandpa (Hughes) have an unsettling taxidermy collection, but there are an unusually high percentage of Mohawks and dyed hairdos among the residents. Things get even stranger when Michael (Patric) falls in with a pack of teenage biker hooligans who collectively resemble a bad ’80s hair band. Lured in by the attractive girlfriend of their ringleader, David (Sutherland), Michael parties with the pack in their cavernous hideout and drinks from a primeval bottle of what he thinks is red wine. The more time Michael spends with David and company, the more bizarre his behavior becomes. He sleeps in late, wears sunglasses indoors, involuntarily floats out the window—you know, typical adolescent stuff. Only when David and his tribe suddenly grow fangs and massacre a group of partiers around a bonfire does Michael begin to understand what’s happening to him. Meanwhile, younger brother Sam (Haim) makes the acquaintance of the Frog Brothers (Feldman and Newlander), a pair of conspiracy theorist comic store employees who believe the city is crawling with incognito vampires. As weird occurrences persist, Sam and his oddball friends embark on a mission to rescue Michael from the depths of vampiredom and terminate his undead companions. But the source of all this evil is closer than they suspect.

why it’s good: Director Joel Schumacher implements a number of variations to the vampire mythology that make the film comical and hip (in a late ’80s sort of way), while still featuring plenty of suspenseful and bone-chilling scenes. Although there is a healthy amount of bloodshed and biting, much of the film’s creepiness stems from other visual and auditory effects. The movie never actually shows David and his vampire cronies flying, for example, but offers a bat’s eye view of their human prey fleeing below. Michael suffers a variety of stomach-turning hallucinations during his descent into nocturnal immortality—his Chinese food turns into a seething mass of maggots and earthworms, and he falls off a train trestle only to land safely on his bed. But the best moments come during a climactic confrontation toward the end, when Michael, Sam and the Frog Brothers take on a very pissed off gang of vengeance-seeking vampires. Some of the death scenes are excellent. When one vampire is knocked into a bathtub full of garlic and holy water, his skin melts off and every toilet and faucet in the house begins spewing fountains of blood. Perhaps the best surprise comes at the very end, however, when grandpa proves he’s not as naïve as everyone thought.

why you should own it: The two-disc, special edition DVD features loads of bonus material, including a documentary and extensive interviews with Schumacher, Sutherland, Haim, Feldman, Newlander, executive producer Richard Donner and makeup artist Greg Cannom. There is a short feature on “the two Coreys,” who went on to costar in at least a half dozen movies together. There is even a map of the world that offers vampire folklore from almost every continent.