Review: The Lost Boys Breaks the Curse of the Vampire Musical on Broadway

A burning question I had going into the new musical The Lost Boys was, “Are they gonna have a sax guy?” You remember him—the shirtless, oiled-up, muscle-bound musician gyrating and wailing on a saxophone in the 1987 Joel Schumacher movie. Leave out that essential iconic character, I thought, and you’ve lost me.

I’m happy to let fellow fans of the film know that Sax Guy (Cameron Loyal) makes more than one slick appearance in director Michael Arden’s heart-pounding, gasp-inducing world premiere of The Lost Boys, now running at the Palace Theatre. It’s the best new musical on Broadway.

Like many Gen Xers, I was bitten hard by Schumacher’s comedy-horror gem about a gang of motorcycle-riding vampires led by Kiefer Sutherland, and I had a list of expectations going in if this thing was going to win me over.

The three minds behind the show—producers James Carpinello, Marcus Chait, and Patrick Wilson—have brought as much reverence and love for the film as I or any Xer could. Still, it was a ballsy decision to attempt another vampire musical when Broadway has historically been more like the Great Garlic Way for bloodsucking belters. Dance of the Vampires and Dracula the Musical spectacularly tanked. And in a gutsy move, The Lost Boys has dared to open in the same theater where almost 20 years ago to the day Lestat received a critic-sharpened stake to the heart and closed in a month.

No such fate awaits The Lost Boys, which has at last lifted the curse and reclaimed the Palace Theatre (and Broadway) for the vamps. David Hornsby and Chris Hoch have written a muscular yet cheeky book that pays homage to the film, retains choice comedic moments (“Death by stereo!”), and ditches dated material in exchange for themes of family and identity. Indie rock band the Rescues elevates it all with a solid score (music director Ethan Popp co-orchestrates, and Julie McBride conducts the band), while Markus Maurette’s special effects and a flock of flying rock-‘n’-roll vampires (aerial design by Gwyneth Larsen and Billy Mulholland) are primed to wow the most jaded Van Helsing.

And then there’s the opening scene, which created an audience sensation unlike anything I’ve witnessed since Stranger Things.

The story stays mostly faithful to James Jeramias and Janice Roberta Fischer’s original. Lucy Emerson (a terrific Shoshana Bean convincingly playing a marriage-weary mom) has left her abusive husband in Phoenix (the ironic “No More Monsters” sets the scene) and moved to the sunny beach town of Santa Carla, California. With her are her two sons, Michael (L.J. Benet sensitively playing a teen with deep wounds), and his Rob Lowe-crushing younger brother, Sam (standout performance by Benjamin Pajak giving a comedic spin to every line). There they take up residence in the taxidermy-filled home of their deceased grandpa (a main character on screen, now relegated to an urn).

In seconds, Dane Laffrey’s colossal set morphs from the Emerson kitchen to a nearby boardwalk littered with missing-person posters, and that’s where Michael meets the flirtatious Star (a bewitching Maria Wirries) and a rock band who turn out to be a pack of vampires led by David (Ali Louis Bourzgui, deliciously wicked as he belts “Time to Kill” with a Billy Idol coif by David Brian Brown). Star worries that Michael’s need to belong will draw him toward David’s darkness even as she yearns for eternal life with Michael. Meanwhile, comic book nerd Sam teams up with local vampire slayers Alan and Edgar Frog (sassy sidekicks Jennifer Duka and Miguel Gil) to hunt down the undead and save the “Murder Capital of the World” from destruction.

The film version of this dark Peter Pan fable gave its characters’ inner lives short shrift, but Hornsby and Hoch have remedied that by excavating the film’s subtext: the search for a family. The Rescues in turn worked that theme into a handful of stirring songs that range from rock to vampire a cappella (beautifully sung by Brian Flores, Sean Grandillo, and Dean Maupin).

Here, it’s Michael’s abusive father (Ben Crawford) who precipitates a fateful sip from David’s cup of blood in the gorgeous number “Belong to Someone” (listen for the haunting refrain from “Cry Little Sister,” Gerard McMahon’s iconic song from the film). Sam embraces his queerness in “Superpower” (Lauren Yalando-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant choreograph his joyous number with a gaggle of colorful Super Sams costumed by Ryan Park). And Lucy, whose character has been deepened most, longs for a second chance at love with mysterious video store owner Max (a creepy Paul Alexander Nolan) in their duet of lost youth, “Wild.” Alas, Lucy has such bad luck with men.

After the breathtaking Act 1 closer (“Secret Comes Out”), two navel-gazing ballads (Star’s “War” and Lucy’s “Michael”) slam the brakes on the great momentum Arden has built. But that’s the worst I can say about a show that had me by the throat for the rest of its two hours and 40 minutes. When the music didn’t grab me, the special effects did: Watching Michael fall back from the train tracks high above the stage into the empty air during his first flight gave me the absolute chills.

Arden has some more theatrical wizardry up his sleeve too. Adam Fisher’s crystalline sound design lets us hear every lyric one minute and jolts us out of our seats the next. Together with the rock-concert lighting (co-designed by Arden and Jen Schriever) and clever use of shadows, Arden creates stunning aural and visual illusions that allow the vampires to teleport from one side of the stage to another. It’s just one more thing in this razor-sharp production that, along with Sax Guy, pierced my nostalgic heart. The vampires are back, Broadway, and this time we’re ready to invite them in.