Reprising his role as Edgar Frog in Lost Boys: The Tribe
“How does this guy look exactly the same 20 years ago? It’s weird.” Corey Feldman is referring to his bandana-wearing, vampire-killing, on-screen Lost Boys counterpart Edgar Frog. Yet talking to the actor face-to-face, I want to express the same question about him. Because here he is, sitting before me, looking freshly hatched from some cryostasis tube. His visage as young as he appeared when I first spied him in Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys shoving a generic comic book into the paws of young pup Sam Emerson (Corey Haim). Of course, now he’s got the goatee and manicured complexion to age things up a bit.
All eyes are on us. Literally. Feldman and I are sitting in a conference room with at least fifteen crew members from the reality program The Two Coreys. There’s the makeup girl, ennui settling over her face. The camera operators. The sound guy, attentive. The producers to my left, arms folded, eyes fixed on us. Someone’s texting away in the corner. Outside of the door: Feldman’s bodyguard, a bear waiting at the mouth of a den. He doesn’t say hello. He’s a nodder. (“Is it time for me to go in?” Nod.) And he wears a blue-ish jogging suit. (Is that standard issue bodyguard attire? I wonder.) The circus has gathered inside here – on the third floor of one of Warner Bros.’ buildings adjacent to the lot – to record footage of us press folk interviewing Feldman about his return as Edgar Frog in Lost Boys: The Tribe, Warner Premiere’s direct-to-DVD sequel arriving July 29th.
Feldman leaps into our introduction with zeal, showering some praise. Not a bad way to start. “I gotta tell ya, [ShockTillYouDrop.com] has been awesome to us,” he says, taking a sip of a freshened glass of Coke. “I stay on top of everything and try to keep my fingers on the pulse of what’s going on in America, abroad and on the Internet. You guys have been champions.”
That’s because it’s been fun tracking the evolution of the long-mooted sequel. Talks of a Lost Boys 2, entitled the Lost Girls, sprang from the coffin years ago, pipedreams of Mr. Schumacher who would fan the rumor flames with his own talks of a follow-up for anyone around to listen. Ultimately, The Tribe‘s producers went with a take by Hans Rodionoff (interview) which picks up with Chris and Nicole Emerson (offspring of the first film’s Michael and Star – Jason Patric and Jami Gertz, respectively) settling into the surf town of Luna Bay where the latter falls for a toothy stud and undergoes a vampiric transformation. Looking for help, Chris turns to none other than Edgar Frog.
“There was an original script which was given to my manager, my manager had read that script and said, ‘Look, it’s surfing vampires – it’s a low budget thing and they’re doing it direct-to-DVD for Warner Bros. There’s a very small cameo for you,'” Feldman recounts, taking me through his early flirtations and hesitations with the sequel. “I said, ‘Look, is Corey in it?’ No. ‘Is Jamison [Newlander] in it?’ No. ‘Is anybody else in it?’ No. No thanks. Pass.”
The result of this conversation led to a heartfelt exchange between Feldman and Haim during the first season of their A&E show. “As we started to gear up for the last season, [executive producer] Mary Viola came on board, Hans [Rodionoff] had come on board. They increased the budget, they decided to throw in the possible option of a theatrical release. They said, ‘Look, we’re coming back to the table. Corey is now involved, you’re part is going to be significant and we’re willing to court the idea of Jamison being in the film.'”
Feldman was impressed by the new draft of the script, excited by its tone, and committed to the production with P.J. Pesce directing. Tad Hilgenbrink and Autumn Reeser came aboard to play Chris and Nicole; meanwhile, Angus Sutherland followed in his half-brother Keifer Sutherland’s bloody footsteps starring as one of the film’s vamps. And yes, Haim will encore as Sam Emerson and Newlander is back in some capacity. All of this is supposedly very hush-hush.
“[The sequel] has got to at least have the tonality from the first film that makes you feel like you could still be watching part of the story,” says Feldman. “I think P.J. Pesce has done a wonderful job from what I’ve seen. It’s got the comedy, the scares, the music, the Frog Bros. and it’s got Angus Sutherland who does an amazing job. So, I believe there’s enough to give a nod to what the fans love so much about the original film.”
“Is it going to be The Lost Boys? No. It’s never going to be The Lost Boys – the original film. But I don’t think we ever wanted to make the original film. As I said before, I think it’s The Lost Boys on steroids for 2008. I mean that. It’s scarier, gorier, sexier, edgier, I don’t know about funnier – but I heard it gets some laughs,” Feldman chuckles with a boyish grin. “Hopefully that’s true and they’re not just blowing smoke. But from what I hear it’s shaping up pretty well. As long as the fans feel that they’re still in the same relationship, the same marriage, it doesn’t mean that it has to be what it was like before therapy, but they’re still in the same marriage. “
Feldman admits those fans will notice a significant change in the look of the vampires. He cites the design as a progression of the original’s makeup FX by Greg Cannom. “The good news is it’s all being done with [practical] makeup, we’re not doing CGI. It’s not some computer-generated puff that you see so much these days where you take a smaller budget and computer animated special effects and chintz out on the budget or see if you could get away with something you shouldn’t be getting away with. What ultimately ends up happening is that it looks like crap. I think they definitely took some bold moves in giving this film its own look and style and feel, visually, in regards to the vampire themselves.”
As for Edgar…how has the intuitive vampire killer developed over the last twenty years? “Aesthetically, it’s not much, as I’m sure you’ve seen in the preliminary pictures that were leaked out. In fact, I know YOU have,” Feldman laughs, not wrong in his statement. “That’s one of the things that makes it fun to watch. It’s one of the connective tissues, if you will, the fact that Edgar Frog has remained pretty much unchanged. The only difference is real fans – fans who have studied the first film backwards and forwards – will notice there’s a little bit more humanity about the guy because he’s been through some really dark times. When we found him in The Lost Boys he was a fan of the vampire genre. He was a comic book reader, he was your average collector guy that’s out at the conventions. It was more of a fantasy for him than anything. I don’t think they had ever been in battle, they were just acting the part until they were confronted with it and you see that fear in them. The fear is gone. There’s no more fear. This guy has been through the trenches, through the war zone for 20 odd years. And there have been some harsh realities in his world. So, you see a much more bruised, brazen and battered, confirmed soldier of a man. Who’s confirmed in his beliefs. Unwavering in his purpose in life which is to stake vampires…”
Feldman pauses. His inner Frog is coming to the fore. The room grows quiet. You can hear the ice in his glass crackle in the remaining soda that’s left. He cuts the silence with: “Nah,” waving a hand. “That’s probably just fluff.”
With two cameras devotedly affixed on each of us, I’m compelled to turn some of the questioning around to Feldman’s longtime friend and scrounge a bit for details about their onscreen dynamic in The Tribe. “Corey as we know…we have spent a lot of time good, bad and ugly and all of the above,” the actor admits. “As far as Corey’s involvement with the film I can’t say too much. Corey’s parts were shot and we’re all excited to have him in the film.” The same goes for Newlander whom Feldman tells me has grown into great friend over the years. Together they have formed, with pal Scott Carlson, a production company to generate projects.
Ah, but back to the d-r-a-m-a. Feldman says any friction with Haim was somewhat tempered during the scenes they share in the film. “There’s certainly an acknowledgement and a nod to the current real life drama that’s going on within the balance between us. However, we’re still characters, so when I’m onscreen, I’m Edgar Frog, there are no ways about that. Anything that happens on the ‘Two Coreys’ is certainly not the way I’m viewing things when I’m in Edgar Frog mode. I’m all about staking vampires and I don’t really have time for Sam Emerson.”
Source: Ryan Rotten
