10 Horror Movie Franchises That Wasted Their Perfect Ending

6. The Perfect One-Liner - The Lost Boys

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors Ending
Warner Bros.
"One thing about living in Santa Clara I never could stomach... all the damn vampires."

With that line, Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys ends with a fantastic chuckle as the bewildered, bloody faces of Lucy Emerson and her sons Michael and Sam look on, and then Echo & the Bunnymen's version of The Doors' People Are Strange starts to play.

This 1987 feature is a major favourite of many, and the above quote from Lucy's elderly father - revealing that he'd neglected to tell them about the vampiric troubles of his hometown - perfectly brought an end to the action.

Despite plentiful speculation over the years that audiences may get a Lost Boys sequel, it looked for the longest time that this property would be a one-and-done affair. Then, 2008 brought us Lost Boys: The Tribe and 2010 served up Lost Boys: The Thirst - and even the biggest fans of the original film had to painfully admit that both of these sequels absolutely sucked.

If The Lost Boys was all that we knew, we'd solely have grin-inducing memories of insta-quotable dialogue, impressive SFX work, big hair, classic '80s fashion, and an utterly iconic soundtrack. While we do still have those memories, they have been somewhat tarnished by the two follow-ups which arrived so many years after the first movie's '87 release.

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Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.