THE LOST BOYS: THE THIRST

CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS. HEY, IT'S AN AVERAGE FILM, YOU'RE GETTING AN AVERAGE SPOILER WARNING.

Average is the word. Another is bland. Others include unremarkable, standard, perfunctory and functional. You might even go as far as pointless. It might as well not even exist for all the tremendous lack of impact it has. This isn't a movie you actually watch and interact with on some kind of subconscious level; it doesn't go any further than your eardrums and retinas. It's obviously the followup to Lost Boys: The Tribe, a sequel that was already surplus to requirements - were there really legions crying out for the further adventures of the Frog Brothers? (Especially since the Frog Brother who wasn't Corey Feldman didn't even make it to the final cut of Lost Boys: The Tribe.)

Both Frogs are back for The Lost Boys: The Thirst, a direct-to-video threequel in which Edgar Frog (Corey Feldman doing a frankly terrible hardman act) is hired by a teen horror novelist to rescue her brother, held hostage by an international ring of vampires who are using vampire blood as a drug to convert young and stupid partygoers into footsoldiers for a vampire army. Recruiting his brother, and arming to the teeth with holy water grenades, impalement mines and UV torches, they locate the bloodsuckers' base and prepare to snatch the kid back. But something isn't quite right....

There are a few laughs from an absolute idiot from a reality TV series who tags along to raise his own media profile, and the involvement of the gothic novelist allows for a few nice digs at the Twilight Saga - the "reality" of vampires is that they're not sexy and attractive, but repugnant and ugly. Sadly they then scupper this "truth" by having most of their vampires looking like lingerie models and beach hunks. As a film, it's probably a tad better made than the previous instalment: it looks fine, and it's done professionally enough (director Dario Piana's previous film was The Deaths Of Ian Stone which I rather liked), put together with no fuss and no pretension. Mysteriously, despite being made for the video market, it's shot in 2.35 scope. But an instalment is all the film ultimately is - it's really nothing more than a mid-series episode. There's no depth to it, nothing to think about, there's no actual meat. It's not terrible, it's certainly not terrible enough to get angry about, but that's all that can be said for it. There's a dedication to the late Corey Haim at the end.

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