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“The Lost Boys” Series to Span Over Several Decades!
Back in August it was revealed that CW will be adapting the 1987 vampire horror film The Lost Boys into a TV series.
Rob Thomas, the creator of “Veronica Mars” and “iZombie”, was revealed to be the show’s showrunner.
Rotten Tomatoes caught up with Thomas at a Television Critics Association panel on Sunday where he talked a bit about the modern take on the original film, which starred Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric, Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, Alex Winter, and, perhaps most importantly, Tim Cappello. Y’know, this guy.
In a cool bit of a reveal, it was said that the show is being eyed as a seven-season run, with each season representing a full decade. The first season will supposedly take place in 1967 and the only characters that will progress from one season to the next will be the vampires who, obviously, don’t age. The beginning would be “1967 Summer of Love Haight-Ashbury to be specific,” Thomas told the site.
[Related] Ever Notice How Many Times They Say “Michael” in The Lost Boys?!
While we love the characters portrayed by Sutherland, Patrick, and Winter, we should expect a different group of vamps in the series. “They’re similar young vampires all sort of living this sort of Peter Pan–like existence of never having to grow up, getting turned into vampires when they’re in their early 20s,” Thomas said. “They can stay young and beautiful and cool forever.”
Speaking of, Thomas does reveal that we could meet some of the original characters in a bit of a crossover moment: “Vampires stay the same age, so those vampires that we meet in the ’80s in the original ‘Lost Boys’ movies could exist in the 1960s version,” Thomas said. “We could run into them there as well. We might not even have to wait until the ’80s to see that other ‘Lost Boys’ crew.”
And because each season jumps a decade, the humans would (obviously) age by 10 years. Says Thomas, “The humans around them change to a degree from year to year,” Thomas said. “They can exist in multiple versions of the show but the humans would get 10 years older. The vampires are going to stay the same age.”
If the initial season takes place in a ’60s San Fransisco, he reveals that the plan is for the second season to take place in a 1970’s New York, with the third obviously taking us to the 1980’s, possibly in Austin, Texas, and the ’90s focusing on grunge in Seattle. What about the final season?
“In seven seasons we would catch up with present day,” Thomas said. “Technically we could be playing the 2024 election in seven years.”
Thomas joked that vampires may be a better alternative to whomever runs for president in 2024. “Any member of our cast certainly I would vote for,” he said.
Let’s start with the good news. Lockbox looks far better than its misleading marketing materials suggest, a supernatural horror movie so darkly lit and color graded that you’ll have to squint your way through jump scares. It’s also anchored by reliable genre performers. That’s also about where the good news ends with this rote adaptation of Knifepoint Horror Podcast story “Winthrop.”
The empathetic Carla Gugino gives her all as Ellen, a saint of a woman with boundless patience who takes on life’s hard luck with a kind smile. After giving up her career as a fashion designer to become caretaker for a dying mother, she’s then forced to reinvent herself once more when her caretaker role ends. That catches us up to the events of Lockbox, where Ellen is asked to take in a cousin she hasn’t seen in quite some time who’s dealing with severe PTSD.
Just as Ellen finally establishes a real connection with Winthrop (Lou Taylor Pucci), it’s interrupted by the arrival of peculiar neighbor Vahna (Katharine Isabelle), who spells clear trouble. When Vahna shows up dead, it sets in motion a supernatural battle of possession.
Image Credit: Aura entertainment
Director Daniel Stamm (The Last Exorcism, Prey for the Devil) and screenwriter Justin Yoffe approach Lockbox in the broadest of brushstrokes, dooming it from the start with clunky storytelling and woefully underdeveloped themes of heady topics like PTSD. Winthrop is a character that comes loaded with emotional baggage and trauma that’s piled on throughout his tragic life, but much like its title, his interiority and history are treated like a tightly guarded secret meant to prolong the supernatural mystery.
The problem here, though, is that Lockbox is too sparse to sustain mystery at all, and it instead robs Winthrop of characterization. It winds up trapping the talented Pucci without anywhere to go, toggling between wounded animal and mentally disoriented.
From there, Lockbox bounds through plot developments without any sense of stakes or purpose, peppered by a smattering of haphazard paint-by-numbers jump scares. The only unwavering constant is Ellen’s resolute faith, and Stamm seems to leave it entirely to Gugino to guide confused audiences through this inconsequential story right up until its supernatural climax.
Image Credit: Aura entertainment
To give more credit, Lockbox at least injects an unconventional exorcism here; just don’t expect much in the way of explanation. When the film finally reveals the meaning behind its title, it dangles a fascinating carrot it has zero interest in delivering. More than a severe lack of fleshing out its characters beyond plot drivers or devices, this faith-based flick also seems terrified to offer any worldbuilding whatsoever.
Yoffe’s script stretches the short story beyond its means instead of fleshing it out, and Stamm fills out the gaps with cheap CGI scares and overwrought performances; Isabelle’s Vahna is beyond cartoonish in her villainy. It’s also pretty nonsensical, treating only Ellen’s faith with the utmost sincerity and largely squandering its typically reliable talent. So much so that the final imagery, pure sunkissed saccharine sentimentality, leaves you with the feeling that this horror movie might be better suited as an entry in Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Lockbox releases in select theaters on July 3, 2026.
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