Decades before Joel Schumacher's 1987 cult horror classic permanently fused 1980s beach, punk, and skate aesthetics with vampire mythology, there was another group of 'lost boys' living on the California coast. The Wilson brothers started out as wholesome musical purveyors of the West Coast sun and surf lifestyle but as the City of Angels began to exert its dark force, the doctrine of "sleep all day, party all night" claimed them. Their sunny pop image collapsed under the weight of mental illness, severe drug addiction, familial abuse and cult associations as they attempted to navigate fame and fortune while struggling with childhood trauma and ongoing paternal manipulation.

During the late 60s and early 70s California could be a dark and dangerous place - the small coastal and college town of Santa Cruz had been dubbed “the Murder Capital of the World”. Between 1970 and 1973, it experienced an extraordinary concentration of horrific violent crimes. While it was a sensational media monicker rather than an official global statistical rank, the sheer density of simultaneous high-profile serial and mass killers operating in such a small community cemented the label. What better place then for Hollywood to superimpose the sun-kissed horror paradise and bohemian lifestyle of the fictitious Santa Carla, setting for The Lost Boys.

The movie’s iconic shot of the surfer running out of the sea at dusk towards the safety of home before darkness falls, neatly summed up the dangers of the hidden world that existed when the sun set on the Californian idyll.

"One thing about living in Santa Monica I never could stomach; all the damn vampires."