The ending of The Lost Boys features the inevitable showdown between the new kid in town Michael and Kiefer Sutherland’s vampire character David. The Lost Boys is an action-packed horror film from 1987 that is built on sheer fun and plenty of 1980s sentiments that fill out every frame of its sharp 97-minute runtime. The film doesn’t aim to take itself too seriously which ends up working for its benefit, taking place in a fictional beach town in Southern California where a group of vampires flies through the night sky and ride motorcycles through the self-proclaimed “murder capital of the world.”
The Lost Boys cast of characters is highlighted by Sutherland’s wicked David, who lures Michael to join his group of immortal vampires by tricking him into drinking his own blood. Michael is initially attracted to the group through the femme fatale Star (Jami Gertz), who is discovered to be only a half-vampire, just like Michael and her little brother Laddie. With the help of Michael’s spunky and hilarious little brother Sam (Corey Haim) and two Americana-infused teenage vampire hunters, Michael must kill the head of the vampires to break the curse of becoming a full-blown vampire before it’s too late.
What Happens In The Lost Boys Ending
The Lost Boys ending gets kicked into high gear following the death of one of the four vampires in David’s group. Teenage vampire hunters Edgar (Corey Feldman) and Alan Jamison Newlander), who have read one too many comic books, kill one of the vampires with a stake in their underground layer. The three remaining vampires wait until nightfall to get their revenge on Michael, Sam, Edgar, and Alan, who escaped with Star and Laddie back to their family home. The mom Lucy (Dianne Wiest) and Grandpa (Barnard Hughes) are completely oblivious to what’s going on until the final moments of The Lost Boys.
David and his two vampire friends Paul and Dwayne arrive at Michael’s house at nightfall. Edgar and Alan are able to kill one of them with the help of Sam’s trusted pet husky by pushing him into a bathtub full of Holy water. Sam takes out the other supporting vampire by shooting him in the chest with an arrow into a home speaker system, which effectively electrocutes the vampire in an explosive death. Michael faces David on his own while fighting the urge to become a full vampire. Michael is able to kill David despite David wanting him to join his crew.
Max Is The Head Vampire In The Lost Boys
In the final scene of The Lost Boys, Max (Edward Herrman) returns from his date with Lucy only to discover that his “boys” are dead. He looks over David’s fallen body with shock and sadness before revealing to everyone that he is in fact the head vampire. Sam, Edgar, and Alan are shocked because they had already suspected Max to be the head vampire earlier in the film. Max had passed all of their tests such as eating garlic and spilling Holy water on him while he was at Lucy’s house for dinner.
Max goes on to explain that vampires are effectively invincible when they are invited into the home, which Michael does unsuspectingly. Grandpa ultimately saves the day by bulldozing into the house with his car, sending a wooden stake from the impact straight through Max and thus killing the head vampire. This in turn breaks the curse for Michael, Star, and Laddie. All three of them rejoice knowing that all the vampires in Santa Carla are now dead until Grandpa reveals the possibility that more are out there just before the credits roll.
Max’s Plan In The Lost Boys Explained
Max had taken an interest in Lucy at the beginning of the film when she happened to walk into his video store on her first night in town. At that same moment, David and his “boys” walked into the store as well but were not welcomed by Max or his dog Thorn, who growled protectively. Considering that they were technically Max’s kids, it seems like even Thorn was in on the plan to conceal Max’s identity. Max tells them to get lost and the vampires walk out mocking him. Max, who appears so approachable and kind, begins to romance Lucy out of genuine interest.
As it turns out, Max was interested in becoming romantically involved with Lucy but with terrible intentions beneath them. As he explains in the third act of The Lost Boys, Max believed that his so-called vampire “children” needed a mother since they were so wild and untamed. It appears that David and the boys were aware of this plan, as they continued to recruit Michael into their group trying to get him to join them as a brother. David tried to persuade Michael to become a true vampire so that his “father” Max could have had an easier time convincing Lucy to join them as well to form a “Bloodsucking Brady Bunch”.
Why Michael & Star Were Only Half Vampires
Michael and Star were both only half-vampires because they didn’t complete the initiation by making their first kill. Had they both completed their first kill, they would have become immortal vampires along with David, Max, and the other boys. Michael did kill David, but it appears that he had to have killed an innocent person with the intent to feed on their blood for the curse to come full circle. It’s uncertain how long Star had been a half-vampire and how she was able to hold off feeding for so long, especially with her being around David so much who likely would have pressured her to fully join his “family.”
The Real Meaning Of The Lost Boys Ending
The Lost Boys set the stage for a sequel with the closing line of the film, which ended up happening with 2008’s The Lost Boys: The Tribe. Haim, Feldman, and Newlander all returned for the sequel and added newcomer Angus Sutherland to play Shane, a surfer by day and vampire by night. After driving his car through the house and killing Max, Grandpa calmly takes a sip of his root beer as if he had finished another typical day at work. He says that in all his years of living in Santa Carla, he never could stomach the vampires.
The film ends with the implication that Max was not the ultimate head of the vampires, meaning that many more were out there and that this was not the first time that Grandpa had dealt with them. The Lost Boys ending also reveals that Grandpa didn’t bother to mention the existence of vampires to his daughter or grandchildren, which Michael, Sam, and Lucy surely would have liked to know before they moved there from Phoenix. Max’s ambitions were somewhat earnest, as he only wanted to have Lucy as a wife and the mother of his “children”, but there was certainly more than meets the eye with him from the very beginning.
