Let’s begin with the good: the musical adaptation of Joel Schumacher’s 1987 movie The Lost Boys looks incredible.  The centerpiece is the flight of the vampires—the spectacular aerial choreography is by Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant.  The seamless, balletic movements of the characters evoke the original source material, J.M. Barrie’s 1904 play Peter Pan, now taken to its most violent conclusion.  There are fireballs and there are electrocutions.  The scenic design by Dane Laffrey is big and bright and bold, the best piece the stage-filling Welcome to Santa Carla sign.  The special effects (Marcus Maurette), the hair and wigs (David Brian Brown), the costumes (Ryan Park), all are at maximum volume.  I was in awe.

The main problem is the music.  The soundtrack for The Lost Boys is iconic: Roger Daltrey, Echo & The Bunnymen, and yes, Tim Capello, the shirtless, lubed-up saxophonist.  The music is integral to its mood, to its sense of place in the mid-eighties.  The adaptation drops the original songs in favor of new ones by The Rescues.  Some of these are good, some are bad, and some, like “Superpower,” feel like they were written for a different project.  In any case, it’s a bit like making a musical out of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and ditching the Morricone.  Why not a jukebox musical?

The book by David Hornsby and Chris Hoch relies on much of the movie’s dialogue.  The most significant changes are the absence of grandpa (his most famous lines are given to other characters) and the addition of an abusive father, the reason for the family’s move to Santa Clara.  There is an attempt to parallel domestic violence with vampirism, but it feels half-hearted, never realized, and the result is a few overwritten lines about how Michael (LJ Benet), after attacking his younger brother Sam (Benjamin Pajak), feels like dad.

The Lost Boys is a movie of excess, made for the Broadway stage.  The creatives responsible for visualizing that excess have done an outstanding job.  The book and the music could use some work.

The Lost Boys runs through November 22nd at the Palace Theatre.  1564 Broadway  New York, NY.  2 hours 30 minutes.  One intermission. Photograph by Matthew Murphy.