It’s Movie Villain Monday and as you might recall from last week’s post I’m featuring “horror” related villains all through October in honour of Halloween.
This week’s movie villain was suggested in the comments on the Facebook page.
It’s David from The Lost Boys (1987).
Who is David?
Played by the scene stealing Kiefer Sutherland (who was only around 20 at the time), David is the head of a biker gang of vampires in the classic 80s Joel Schumacher film.
For much of the movie David is believed to be the main antagonist. It’s later revealed that he’s actually an underling of the real head vampire, Max who the film’s protagonists must kill in order to turn all half vampires (vampires that haven’t yet made their first kill) back into humans.
Personality and Characteristics:
In his human form David is cool, calm, charismatic and quietly mysterious - but when he transforms into a vampire he becomes murderous and animalistic, seeing humans as nothing more than food.
Powers and Abilities:
Throughout the film David displays vampiric powers such as flight, supernatural strength, the power of persuasion and the ability to manipulate a person’s reality (or at least what they see).
Physical Appearance:
As far as his image is concerned, whether it’s an 80s thing or not, his physical appearance of a bleach blonde punk style mullet, stubble, earring and all black clothing including a long trench coat, has cemented David in pop culture fame as one of (if not the) most iconic vampires (after Dracula and Nosferatu) of all time. In fact he and Billy Idol were the inspiration for the character “Spike” in the hugely successful TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Trivia:
Although there was never really any danger of Kiefer Sutherland not getting the role of David, Jim Carrey was briefly considered after having previously played a vampire in the movie Once Bitten (1985). Director Joel Schumacher was impressed with Sutherland’s performance in At Close Range (1986) a year earlier and got him in for a reading. We all know the rest...
Strangely, David has the least amount of dialogue out of any of the main characters in the movie, so it’s a real credit to Kiefer Sutherland’s acting that he still manages to steal just about every scene he’s in.
Back in the late 80s when the film was made they didn’t have some of the more advanced CGI or make up effects that are available now. As a result the vampire actors had to wear excruciatingly uncomfortable glass contact lenses to give them that terrifying “firey eyed” look.
The scene where David’s hand gets burnt by sunlight after Marco’s death, and a single tear runs down his face wasn’t just good acting from Sutherland. His eyes were so sore from the contact lenses that they watered and that tear was just a really fortunate accident.
Something that may have slipped past fans of The Lost Boys (it certainly did me) is that David is the only vampire in the movie that doesn’t die a gruesome death when staked. There’s a reason!
Apparently there was a sequel planned called “The Lost Girls” that never got made and it was intended that David would return. He did however return in a 2008 comic book series called “Lost Boys: Reign of Frogs”, in which it’s explained that the antlers that impaled him at the end of the film missed his heart.
Hmmmm....
“Now you know what we are, now you know what you are. You'll never grow old Michael, and you'll never die. But you must feed!”
Another great suggestion and a very worthy addition to the Movie Villain Monday hall of fame.
Who should I feature next week?