I believe Arthur C. Clarke had written that once is an accident, twice is a coincidence and thrice is conspiracy. What do you call it when it happens like five times in span of a week? An outright infestation is what is. What I’m talking about here is the Direct-to-Video sequel with ‘Lost Boys: The Tribe’ being the fourth one of these things I’ve seen in the past few days. ‘Starship Troopers 3’ – which I liked a lot, ‘Wargames: The Dead Code’- which was pointless, ‘Art of War 2’ – which was abhorrent, ‘Scorpion King 2’ which is still waiting in the wings and this movie which was… probably more pointless than even the ‘Wargames’ DTV sequel.

Chris (Tad Higenbrink) and Nicole (Autumn Reeser) are a couple of kids relocating to Sunny California after the tragic death of their parents and looking to get a new lease on life. Chris apparently used to be a hotshot surfer, even though he doesn’t go anywhere near a surfboard in this movie, but lost his sponsorship due to his hot heatedness or something.

One particular fateful evening while looking over the water, Chris runs into Shane (Angus Sutherland) who was also a hotshot surfer at one time or another but has traded in all of his surfer glory for something much larger and grander. He invites Chris to his little villa where he is having yet another blowout party, and though he is reluctant to go, little sister Nicole convinces him to make that move.

So at this typical off the chain party where nobody is over the age of 22, Chris meets some girl who is dancing by the fire. Now I’ve seen enough of these kinds of movies to know that when I see a hot chick doing a voodoo dance by a fire she should probably be left to her own devices, but my man Chris apparently hasn’t seen any of these movies and the next thing you know nasty sex is ensuing in a shower. Nicole on

the other hand has caught Angus’ eye who has swept her off her feet with his laconic, coma-esque cool and offers her a drink from his trusty flask. Bad move because that was vampire blood in that there flask and the next thing you know Nicole has a hankering for some human flesh.

Now the over protective brother needs to find a way to save his sister from completing her vampire transition which introduces him to the lone holdover from the first film in Surfboard shaper Edgar Frog (Corey Feldman) who gives Chris the 411 on what must be done to save his sister, which includes him becoming something of a vampire himself. Now armed with plenty of wood, holy water and other vampire killing nick-knacks it’s time to kick some vampire ass, at least in theory.

First thing let me say that actress Autumn Reeser in incredibly blessed because even though the woman is quickly closing in on thirty, they have her playing a seventeen year old in this movie and she almost looks too young to be doing that. Now as far as this movie goes I have no real affinity towards the original, though I did see it back’87 and I know it has a very solid cult following, but other than the fact I thought it looked cool, it was really just another movie to me. That should bode well for ‘The Tribe’ from my viewing angle since I have no loyalty to the original and can watch this particular movie with almost no influence from the original. Oh well. I’m thinking the problem with this movie is that it follows the original movie all too closely in theme and narrative, minus a lot of the action, a good bit of the humor, most the coolness and it’s also missing most of the homosexual undertones that that Joel Schumacher layered onto that original film. What we are left with is Angus Sutherland, who is a good looking kid but one who seems to be trying to figure out the difference between acting comatose and acting cool, there’s a little bit of gore though I would think this sleepy little town would start to miss their loads of young women that these cats feast upon a fairly regular basis at some point, and we also have Corey Feldman floating around delivering a fairly lame set of one-liners.

Though I have no real loyalty to the first ‘Lost Boys’ flick, this sequel, some twenty one years later, would probably have been better served simply calling itself something else. It’s really not cool enough, campy enough, silly enough or gay enough to be a real ‘Lost Boys’ movie. If you’re a big fan of the original, I doubt that this film please you at all, and if you’re a fan of vampire / horror movies in general, I doubt that this movie will please you either.