"Initiations over Michael. Time to join the club!"
- "David to Michael in his vampire form."
David is the secondary antagonist of the film The Lost Boys. He is a teenaged male and leader of a motorcycle gang who are all bloodthirsty vampires in the beach community of Santa Carla, California. Although David was believed to be the main villain of the film, this was a misconception to hide the true main villain.
The part of David was portrayed by Kiefer Sutherland.
Background[]
Not much is known about David. It is fan speculated that he may be from the year 1906 (when the Hudson's Hotel first caved in) by the way his gang talks about it. He and his gang of bikers have lived there for a long time.
Character Biography[]
David and his gang usually hung out near the boardwalk in Santa Carla, California. Every place they went into, they were usually told to leave because they were known to cause trouble. It can be assumed or believed that David and his gang were responsible for numerous disappearances in the area because of their mysterious nature although the authorities didn't know this.
One night, David and his gang encounter teenager Michael Emerson (who had just moved to Santa Carla with his younger brother Sam and mother) talking to Star, a young woman who lives with David. After Michael talks to Star the next night, David approaches him and goads him into following the gang down the beach until they reach a dangerous cliff, which Michael almost goes over. At the gang's headquarters, a sunken luxury hotel beneath the cliff, David initiates Michael into the group by tricking him into thinking he's eating maggots and worms and then having him drink from a bottle of wine. Star warns Michael not to drink, telling him it's blood bur Michael ignores her advice (thinking he's being tricked again).
Later on, David and the others, including Michael, head onto the train tracks where they hang off the edge over a foggy gorge below and all fall down into the gorge; Michael loses his grip and falls down with them.
The next day as a result of the previous nights events, Michael develops a thirst for blood and supernatural powers. Michael realises he's turning into a vampire after he impulsively tries to attack Sam and Sam's dog, Nanook retaliates by biting him in the hand and pushing Michael away from Sam. Sam discovers from comic books that since Michael hasn't killed anyone, he is a "half-vampire" and his condition can be reversed following the death of the "head vampire" (Initially believed to be David).
In an attempt to force him into killing, David takes Michael to stalk a group of beachgoers and instigates a feeding frenzy. Horrified by the sight, Michael escapes and returns home to Sam. Star then arrives and reveals herself as a half-vampire who is looking to be cured. It emerges that David had intended for Michael to be Star's first kill, thus sealing her fate as a vampire.
The next day, a weakening Michael leads Sam and the Frog brothers (2 teenagers who own a comic book store in Santa Carla who are also self-proclaimed vampire hunters whom Sam met earlier in the film) to the gang's lair. They impale one of the vampires, Marko, with a stake awakening David and the 2 others, but the boys escape, rescuing Star and Laddie, a half-vampire child and Star's companion.
That evening, Michael, Sam and the Frog brothers arm themselves with holy water filled water guns, a longbow, and stakes, and board themselves up from the attacking vampires. Night falls and David leads his gang in an attack on the house. After the other vampires are killed (Paul by being pushed into a bathtub filled with garlic and holy water, dissolving him to the bone and Dwayme by being shot through the heart by an arrow from Sam's longbow, causing him to get electrocuted by the stereo behind him and parts of his body to explode), David faces off against Michael, forcing Michael to use his vampire powers. Although David still tries to convince Michael to join him and become a full vampire, Michael refuses and eventually overpowers David by impaling him on a set of antlers.
Although he originally wasn't meant to be dead, what happens to David that could be taken as his calm, quiet death could be seen as reflective on the true innocence of his personality as a human and that the way a vampire dies is in strong connection with that.
David's Return[]
David returned in a comic book sequel titled Lost Boys: Reign of Frogs. In it, it is revealed that David did indeed survive the film due to the antlers missing his heart. When Edgar and Alan Frog returned to their comic book store, David led a new group of vampires he had created to seek revenge. However, the Frog brothers, with the help of Sam, managed to kill his entire pack, but David managed to escape. After he does so, it is revealed that he is a servant to the Black Widow Johnson. He makes plans with her to see vengeance again.
It is also revealed that David had managed to create the new vampire, Shane Powers, during his attack on the group from the bonfire in the previous film. Shane would go on to become the antagonist of the second film titled Lost Boys: The Tribe.
It is unknown what became of David in the future. Although a vampire whom Shane and his group killed in the beginning of the Tribe is credited as David van, and was even said by Shane to have beem from Santa Carla, it is unclear if this is actually David himself. Most likely not, considering vampires do not age, and David Van is clearly in his sixties while David appears to be in his early twenties.
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