The Lost Boys: A Study Guide

Kylo Ren in his teenage days...

The Lost Boys is a perfect companion to Dracula for use in the Preliminary English Extension 1 Text, Culture and Value module, in that it both parallels and offers alternatives to Bram Stoker's seminal text. Below is a study guide resource that can be used to support teaching The Lost Boys.

The first section of the guide provides a Cast of Characters that will assist students in establishing who's who in the film. There are essentially 9 characters of note (10 if you want to count the rest of David's gang as a single character).

• Michael: The protagonist.
• Sam: The deuteragonist (secondary protagonist) and Michael's younger brother.
• Lucy: Their mother. Note: her name has deliberately been borrowed from Dracula.
• Star: Michael's love interest.
• David: The antagonist and leader of the 'Lost Boys' gang.
• Grandpa: Lucy's father.
• Edgar and Alan Frog: Supporting characters; they are the film's equivalent of Dracula's 'Van Helsing' character.
• Max: Lucy's love interest and quite a significant character in the film's climactic scenes.
• The Lost Boys: David's gang of vampires.

Also featured in the film but not mentioned in the document are:

• Laddie: A boy vampire and companion to Star.
• The Surf Nazis: A local (non-vampire) gang that the Lost Boys feud with throughout the film.
• Nanook: Sam and Michael's dog.
• Thorn: Max's dog. 

The rest of the study guide looks at the film by providing a series of sample shots with accompanying analysis. I've arbitrarily broken the film into 8 sections (a prologue and seven 'chapters') to help students think of the plot elements in regards to the narrative. The analysis is unpacked in the following fashion:

• Example - a shot that can be analysed in reference to the module.
• Description, Techniques - describing what is happening in the shot and what techniques have bee used to communicate ideas to the audience.
• Context, Values - subsequent analysis linked to the film's context both in terms of the vampire myth (Dracula) and its own time/place. In addition, where possible, the film's communication of key values is identified as well.

Example 1

Description, Techniques: Camera pans up as David walks out of the mist between disaffected teenagers riding the merry-go-round. Note his scruffiness, swaggering body language, and the cigarette behind the ear.

Context, Values: David and the other Lost Boys move between the static horses on the merry-go-round, which establishes how they don't quite fit in with other teenagers. David stops at a girlfriend of another local hoodlum and caresses her, echoing the mesmeric effect that Count Dracula and the Weird Sisters have on characters in Dracula. This sequence (and his costume) also demonstrates that David is not bound by social conventions attached to other people.

Example 2

Description, Techniques: Michael struggles to wake up in the morning and now needs sunglasses to protect his eyes against the sunlight. To an outsider he seems hungover, and the idea of teenage surliness in the morning becomes an allegory for his transformation into a vampire.

Context, Values: Note that Michael now has his ear pierced - symbolising his rebellion against adult-enforced gender norms. Sam asks Michael, "Are you freebasing?", a reference to doing cocaine and an echo of the words that many anxious parents ask sullen teenage boys exhibiting drastic changes in behaviour. In this case, as with previous examples, Michael's anti-social behaviour is in reality a result of vampirism. This is exemplified further when Michael is rude to his grandfather.

Resource: the full Study Guide can be found here.

This Looper-created video above is also helpful for providing some analysis of the film's context and how this shaped its representation of the era's values. Not all of the video will be completely relevant but students may still find it of interest.