When news came out back in 2008 that a sequel to the classic 80s movie, The Lost Boys was going to be made, mixed opinions started to form as to whether it was a good idea and whether it would be any good.  It was a straight to DVD release and when I saw Lost Boys: The Tribe, it made an OK movie but didn’t have the originality that the first movie did. We we knew that would happen didn’t we?

Dread Central have now debuted the trailer for the third installment of the Lost Boys franchise, this time called Lost Boys: The Thirst which sees 80s legend, Corey Feldman as Edgar Frog back to fight the vampire once again, this time ably assisted by his brother Alan Frog (Jamison Newlander) who we saw in the first movie.

From this new trailer, it looks like an OK movie which has the potential to be better than the second but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I would bet my bottom dollar than this movie will be made in honour of Corey Haim who sadly died earlier this year. You’ll remember him from the original The Lost Boys movie playing the lead role as Sam.

Lost Boys: The Thirst also stars Jamison Newlander, Sean Cameron Michael, Seb Catang, Tanit Phoenix and is directed by Dario Piana.

Synopsis: When veteran vampire hunter Edgar Frog finds himself destitute and almost friendless, he thinks his life has hit bottom – but wealthy vampire-romance novelist Gwen Liebling offers him a small fortune to go on the vampire hunt of a lifetime and rescue her son Peter from the Alpha Vampire D.J.Dusk. With the help of his friends Zoe, Lars, and Blake, Edgar heads into a bloody battle to exterminate evil.

This is really not good news at all. TMZ are reporting that HeyUGuys favourite has died of an overdose at the age of 38.

Haim shot to fame in the 1987 movie The Lost Boys and it was his relationship with fellow LB actor Corey Feldman which followed him through his life.

They were poster boys of the 80s generation, and teamed on License to Drive and Dream a Little Dream and while they both returned in an easter egg at the end of The Lost Boys 2: The Tribe the lasting memory most of us will have of Haim is as one of the Santa Carla Vampire Hunters.

Haim was recently seen in Crank: High Voltage and there was always a solid foundation of nostalgics who would keep an eye on his career, and most of those people were no doubt looking forward to the next two Lost Boys movies, no matter how bad they would have been it would have been great to see those two back together (albeit on different sides…).

I had this same feeling during the John Hughes Oscars Tribute, and we’ve discussed it on our podcast, when someone dies – someone who inspired us on some level to love film as much as we do – it will always affect us deeply. No matter where Corey Haim’s career went after The Lost Boys the fact that we loved watching him in that film, a film which made up part of our childhood, will always stay with us. Their work, even one great film we loved, will stay with us and that’s to be celebrated.

And yes, our views on him may be clouded with nostalgia, but I’m fine with that and I know I’ll be watching The Lost Boys again tonight.

Here’s a scene from the original..

And another from the sequel (Spoilers ahoy)

Yes, you read that right – Lost Boys 4…

Despite a critical mauling it received the Lost Boys sequel subtitled The Tribe released last year did well enough to warrant a third film in the series, which you can read about here.

It seems we’re overrun with vampire franchises these days, and certainly each generation reinvents the myth and twenty years ago we had the seminal 80s flick The Lost Boys, and thanks to the lure of the nostalgia market we’ll be seeing a Lost Boys film every year from now until the end of time.

So says MovieWeb, who in their conversations with Messrs Haim and Feldman, confirmed that while Haim wont’ be joining Feldman’s Edgar Frog in LB 3 he will return to reunite the team in the fourth film, though with a difference (which keen viewers of Lost Boys 2 will know about).

This is perfect news for the first birthday of HeyUGuys as it exemplifies where the industry is in terms of walking the fine line between continuing great stories and characters from the past and the shameless ransacking of our faded memories of franchises for cash.

We love the films we grew up with and we take our name from one of our favourites, we’ll keep a keen, though cynical eye on these films.