The Lost Boys.

Part of my birthday present from Himself was tickets to go and see The Lost Boys on a big outdoor screen (for it is 25 years since the film was released, I kid you not! Where they hell have those years gone???)

(I have this very poster which a friend of a friend nicked for me from the video shop where they worked!) (back in the days when there still were video shops)

To say I am just a bit excited about this would be a major understatement, I suspect I will get there and run round squealing until I hyperventilate and pass out. Which is pretty much what me and Jenny did when we first saw it at the cinema all those 25 years ago.

Let me set the scene......

I had been to the cinema, to see a film the title of which has been lost in the mists of time. Whilst there I saw a trailer for The Lost Boys. Long haired, painfully cool, drop dead gorgeous vampires? I was sold.
 Jenny however was not.
For she had not seen the trailer or heard of the film, she also had an important essay deadline at Uni. So quite frankly I literally nagged her into it, to the point where she agreed to go just to shut me up. The compromise was an early viewing so she could slave away over the essay afterwards (yeah right, but more of that later.)
We got the cinema, bought our tickets and took our seats. All through this and the trailers and the start of the film (cos in those days you didn't have 40 freaking minutes of adverts before a film), Jenny grumbled loudly about how she shouldn't be there, how she would fail on her essay, how it was all my fault etc.

Then that amazing opening shot on the carousel happened. 

I don't think I will ever forget the sound of her huge intake of breath when she saw The Lost Boys walk onto the carousel in slow motion, we clutched at each others arms in speechless wonder when we saw Brooke McCarter and Billy Wirth for the first time and were lost.

                   These two weren't the only reason we loved the film but they certainly helped! 

Like many others around me, I did become oh so slightly OBSESSED with the film after that first viewing. I suppose just like 'Interview with the Vampire' in the 90's or 'Twilight' and 'True Blood' now, at the time this film was huge. The enduring romance of the handsome vampire. Everyone secretly wanted to be a Lost Boy or seduced by a Lost Boy.

Of course I wanted to be Star! Jamie Gertz was so beautiful and so damn cool.

  I ran out to River Island and bought broderie anglaise bustier tops in dark red, black and white, I ran to the Indian shop on the Cowley Road and bought elasticated waist gypsy skirts with handkerchief hemlines.
I thought I would look gorgeous like her.

 I did not.

Indeed I actually looked like a shapeless sack. I was tall and thin with no boobs and absolutely no waist. Bustiers need some boobage to make them look sexy and elasticated waists need an actual waist and hips otherwise they just look bad, very bad.

I went back to the drawing board and decided to dress my boyish figure in the boys clothes. Lost Boys clothes.

I can most definitely say my long enduring love of military jackets started there and then.

 Luckily for me in those days there was an Army and Navy surplus store in Oxford. I never looked back. With the scarves tied around the top of my riding boots and round my wrists, tight fitted trousers and a long military frock coat, (the huge hair was already there) my look was complete.

I went to see the film a few times at the cinema and played it to death when I got the video then I guess fickle wench that I am I simply moved on. To the point where I haven't seen it in, well, ages. I only bought it on DVD a few years ago and can't actually remember when I last saw it.

And yet......and yet.

When Himself mentioned the outdoor screening in passing a few weeks ago I had a rush of the old magic.

Don't let me down boys.