Script To Screen: “The Lost Boys”

A pivotal scene from the 1987 movie The Lost Boys, screenplay by Janice Fischer & James Jeremias and Jeffrey Boam, story by Janice Fischer & James Jeremias.

IMDb plot summary: After moving to a new town, two brothers are convinced that the area is frequented by vampires.

In this scene, Michael, who has been hanging around with David and crew, is put to the test.

Here is the movie version of the scene.

Lots of differences, most of them small, but the focus on the changes seems to be about heightened the mystery of the Lost Boys and that Michael is now a part of them, i.e., has become a vampire. Note:

• Instead of climbing down to hang on the underside of the bridge, the Boys plummet into the fog, only to be revealed as hanging on.
• David keeps repeating to Michael, “You’re one of us now” and invites Michael to let go and fall into the sky below.
• Interestingly the movie cuts the catcall lines from the fog below, opting instead for generic laughter on the part of the Boys.

The train thing is a great visual bit, a distillation of the juvenile delinquent dynamic present in the story and the vampire theme, here reinforced by the image of them hanging down, then presumably flying in the fog.

What other changes do you note between script and screen?

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a Go Into The Story series where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

For more Script To Screen articles, go here.