A chance encounter in Santa Cruz transports us to the set of The Lost Boys in Santa Carla.
The Lost Boys – classic 1980s teen movie
Have you ever seen the 1980s classic teen vampire movie, The Lost Boys? It features a Who’s Who of ’80s actors – Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Keifer Sutherland. We rented it on DVD this week and oh man, it is such a period piece. It came out in 1987, when I was 11. Watching it now takes me straight back to that era – the hair styles and clothing could be straight out of my sixth-grade school yearbook, there is even a scene with BMX bikes, and it is all set to classic tunes performed by bands like INXS and Echo and the Bunnymen. It was actually a surprisingly well-made, fun flick.
I’d forgotten all about this movie until our recent trip to Santa Cruz. I don’t even think I saw it when it came out – my mum probably thought I’d find it too scary. (She would have been right – the main movie I remember from 1987 is The Princess Bride and that was quite scary enough for an overly imaginative 11-year-old).
Check out this scene from The Lost Boys with the older brother Michael (Patric) and gang leader David (Sutherland).
Santa Cruz on Highway 1
The main reason I bothered to look up The Lost Boys and watch it was because of a chance encounter on our recent road trip down Highway 1 south of San Francisco. We stopped in Santa Cruz on our way to Monterey. We’d taken Highway 101 to leave the city and then the Santa Cruz cut-away road through the mountains to reach the coast and Highway 1. (We went back north via Highway 1, which is when we passed Pescadero and stopped at Duartes Tavern).
This was our first glimpse of the ocean since leaving the city. We parked our car on the cliffs overlooking the beach and watched the surfers and kite-flyers for a while. My husband and I then walked north towards the amusement park. We were on the other side of the river but we could see a disused railroad bridge and it seemed to have a footpath, so we decided to cross. The amusement park was closed but it was fun to stretch our legs and explore.
The Lost Boys Railroad Bridge in Santa Carla
This would have been nothing more than a pleasant walk, except that on the way back across the bridge, a man passed us. Noting my camera and the giant sign on our foreheads saying “tourist” (joke), he asked if it was our first time in Santa Cruz. We told him it was. He then asked if we had seen The Lost Boys, which my husband had, and told us that it was set in a fictional Californian town called Santa Carla, but it was really Santa Cruz and this railroad bridge was in the movie.
I’m sure it’s no great secret that The Lost Boys was filmed in Santa Cruz but I really appreciated the man thinking to stop and tell us about the bridge. We hadn’t read the guide book entry for Santa Cruz, so this fact would have completely passed us by otherwise. Instead it turned our little walk into an adventure filled with discovery. It’s a nice example of the serendipity of travel that can happen when you make time for unstructured wandering on a trip.
This made me decide to catch up on my ’80s movies and watch the film. It’s a shame we don’t have a VCR – it would have been quite an authentic experience to watch it on VHS tape – but at least we did find the DVD in a real bricks-and-mortar video rental store (it’s not available for download on iTunes). When I finally got around to watching it last week, I also discovered that the amusement park features quite heavily in the opening scenes as well. I wonder if the cave – where the vampires have their hideout supposedly in the ruins of an old hotel that was swallowed by the 1906 earthquake – is real.
Do you recognise the railroad bridge in the YouTube movie clip from my photos? Did you know about this movie and railroad bridge? Am I too easily amused?
Updated February 2010: It appears I might be wrong. Before writing this post, I looked online and confirmed that The Lost Boys was definitely filmed in Santa Cruz. However, I’ve since learned that the rail bridge scene was likely filmed elsewhere. Google searches suggest that although many locals assume the film used the local rail bridge, that particular scene was in fact filmed in Valencia.
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Now that the holiday season is over, I am resuming my series on Highway 1 in California. Please tune in next Monday for the next installment and subscribe so you don’t miss out.
Related posts – Highway 1: Steinbeck country: The Carmel Valley Road
Photo Friday: Monster rocks at Point Lobos
Related posts – Film locations: Star Wars in Tunisia series
I think this is awesome. There’s something so fulfilling about walking around a place that was a location for a film – especially one you enjoy.
I had a friend visiting from England who loved the movie ‘So I Married an Axe Murderer’ with Mike Myers. I looked up all the locations he would recognize from the movie and used that as my outline for playing tourist in San Francisco during his visit. Palace of Fine Arts. Jack Kerouac Street. Stuff like that.
He loved it, makes me wonder if there’s a market for something like that in the Bay Area – hosting movie location tours. (Watch, I’ll google it later when I get home from work and someone is already doing it.
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.-= Matt (Geeky Traveler)´s last blog ..Historic California, Part 1 – Placerville =-.
You definitely might be on to something. Great comment! – Caitlin.
Fun post. Glad to hear a story about a random American helping tourists out! By the way, that’s a classic movie. I think by and large travelers like to get lost in their imaginations. Doing it where a movie was filmed just makes sense.
.-= Keith´s last blog ..The Career Crisis =-.
I haven’t seen that movie, but this did bring back memories of my trip in April down Highway 1 — I went Half Moon Bay to Big Sur. Great post!
.-= Travelogged´s last blog ..The Best Pizza in Park City Is Served at a Nightclub =-.
The Lost boys, classic film. It’s times like this when I am reading a post about a roadtrip that I wish I could drive. I’d love to take some time out of work and go on a road trip within the US. Another great post Caitlin, love the photos.
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You don’t need to drive, you just need to enlist a travel companion who can drive! – Caitlin.
I love visiting places and imagining what others did before my time at the same location. I remember walking up the cobblestones in Prague thinking this same thought about the Bohemian Kings galloping up and down these same steps!
I love traveling and just stumbled upon your site. Love the pictures.
You know the funky house that the family moved into in ‘Lost Boys’? My aunt and uncle were married in that house, which was actually a public facility. Sadly, the place was badly damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and has long since been torn down.
The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk was used as one of the locations for ‘Lost Boys’. I highly recommend visiting the Boardwalk in the summer when the rides are running–it’s some of the best Good Cheesy Fun in the Bay Area.
.-= Liz Hamill Scott´s last blog ..Pod People! =-.
Cool! Thanks for letting me know. What a shame it’s been torn down. – Caitlin.
Actually it’s the Pogonip clubhouse and it wasn’t torn down but it is being remodeled. I visited the site last Sept and it looks great so far!
This is the bridge from The Lost Boys. Whatever constraints – time, budget, weather, whatever – may have caused filming of the bridge scene to take place elsewhere, this is the bridge.
just made that trip a few days ago. so pretty. the bridge at gaviota state beach had reminded me of the move Lost Boys so I decided to look it up and came across this.
Hi,
The Lost Boys is my favorite film of all time.I live in the UK but visited Santa Cruz last year to seek out all the filming locations.The house that the Emersons movie into is the Pogonip country club and was still there last year,i have pictures…lots of pictures.It was however boarded up and empty.I visited lighthouse point which is a tiny surf museum and featured in the opening credits.I went to spot where the welcome to Santa Carla sign was,the bridge,the boardwalk and the restaurant where max and lucy have their date (the food was great) I went to the shop that was used as max’s video store,which is now a gift shop.I also visited the owner of the comic shop that had the comic shop used in the film,it has since moved location but is still in Santa Cruz.The owner has the ‘vampires everywhere’ comic that is used in the film and is signed by the cast and crew of the film.
Just thought i would share this with you,Santa Cruz is an awesome place and i am wanting to go back again soon!!
Oh,the caves used for the external shots of the film are further up the coast but the interior shots were filmed on a sound stage.
Wow, you’re a true fan! Thanks so much for sharing that info. – Caitlin.