Goodbye Corey Haim.

In third and fourth grade, my best friend and I used to sleep over at each other's houses every weekend. We would usually rent a movie, and when we were at my friend's house, we always had to rent a PG rated movie. But, one weekend my friend's parents were out of town and so her grandparents were babysitting. So, my friend and I got to sleep in her parents' bed and watch television in their room. It was our chance to watch a PG-13 (which, in all honesty, wasn't that big of a deal since we could watch R-rated movies at my house). We decided to rent Lucas because it was not rated G and because it starred Corey Haim. And, even though I had seen Lucas before, there was something very special about watching this touching movie, Lucas, while lying in bed, eating popcorn, and snuggling up to my best friend in the world. That, I think, is the perfect way to be introduced to Corey Haim.

On March 10, 2010, Corey Haim died at the age of 38. I know that you may only remember him as seen on television during the last 10 or so years. He always appeared slightly bloated and seriously high. It was always sad to see him in that state when you remembered how good he was as a little boy actor. Corey first started out in First Born, a movie starring Terri Garr, where her boyfriend was an abuser. That movie is so old and wasn't super popular. I remember watching pieces of it on t.v. and being sort of drawn to little Corey. Appealing, he was.

Corey's most known movies are Lucas, where he played a too-smart-for-his-own-good kid who falls in love with a new girl at school, and The Lost Boys, where Corey played a knowledgeable boy about vampires who moves to a town where he's surrounded by bloodsuckers. Roger Ebert, in Corey's Los Angeles Times obituary, was referenced as saying how promising and real Corey Haim was in Lucas, and how complex and believable he was able to make the title role. Of course, Roger would say it best. Corey DID seem promising and for a while it all worked out. The Lost Boys was a popular movie and he was good in it, managing to hold his own with an impressive cast: Keifer Sutherland, Jason Patric, Jamie Gertz, and Dianne Wiest, to name a few. The Lost Boys has a sort of dreary mood to it. The first time I heard The Doors was in the soundtrack to The Lost Boys. "People are strange and when you're a stranger...faces look ugly when you're alone...women seem wicked..." I couldn't even listen to that song when I was little without burying my head in my pillow. Around The Lost Boys is when Corey started hanging around Corey Feldman (as he was in The Lost Boys in a smaller part) because they soon were billed as the Two Coreys. (And, years and years later, there was a show on VH1 or MTV or Lifetime or something about the Two Coreys living together...very painful to watch.)

When Corey was still a teenager, he made movies like License to Drive and Dream A Little Dream with Corey Feldman. These movies...ugh...just the absolute bottom of the barrel. See, Corey Haim was billed as a heartthrob and probably graced a few covers of Tigerbeat. However, Haim never really should have been categorized as that. Okay, you know how lackluster Freddie Prinze Jr. and Adrian Grenier are? Like, they are total wet rags, yes? Well, Haim wasn't like that. He had a bit of adolescent charisma and believability that has been seriously lacking in so-called heartthrobs since the late 1980s. Haim just sort of got roped into these "teenage" movies. He was better than them. And, maybe, that's where things started to go wrong with the drugs and the lack of movie roles for anyone with some talent.

Of course, I had a hunch that he was on drugs just from video clips. But, when I checked him out on imdb, I learned that he fairly recently had to file for bankruptcy and just seemed not at all in a good place. Is it wrong to bottle someone's best years--to appreciate Haim only as the promising little boy actor he once was--and discount the rest? I don't know. I guess we'll never know the real Corey. I mean, imdb only gives us movie credits and some choice life events. That's not all there is to him. And, we'll remember much more. We all have our own references for first knowing Corey Haim. If yours is seeing him on a VH1 special of "Child Stars: Where Are They Now," then you need to get a new reference. If nothing else, watch Haim in Lucas. There's a really great scene where he takes his crush through the shallow underground sewer to arrive below an orchestra playing outside in a summer show. Lucas and his crush, Maggie, sit back-to-back, listening to the music. And, you might fall in love with Corey Haim as he plays the character, Lucas, falling in love with a pretty and kind girl.

I will remember Corey Haim. Rest in peace. 12/27/1971 - 03/10/2010