Looking back at the blog entry I wrote about The Two Coreys in the summer of 2007, I guess the news of Corey Haim’s death should not have come as a surprise. But it did. Somehow I always assumed that the kids I watched onscreen would grow up to be okay, and every time I learn that a once-promising life has gone off the rails, it evokes a combination of shock and disappointment. On some level it always drives home the fact that the expectations and ideals we had as children are fragile and fallible. Like so many things in life, this simply should not have turned out this way.
At age twelve (in 1990), did I anticipate things ending this way for Corey Haim? I did not. In fact, at age twelve, my friend and I shifted from playing Barbies to writing “life stories”. They were basically an extended game of M.A.S.H., wherein you’d write your BFF an absurd future featuring every boy she’d ever had a crush on. We’d torture each other with marriages to Hollywood heartthrobs that resulted in scores of absurdly named children and ended in a comically bitter divorce or an absurd death. "Ha ha! I’ll let you have your Tom Cruise, but *this* is how it turns out!" The funny thing is that the one happy ending I wrote involved Corey Haim. After the usual string of mishaps, I had my friend (aged forty-six in the story) marry a fifty year old Corey Haim, adopt a pile of kids, and live happily ever after. At the time, I literally could not imagine anything going wrong in a marriage to Corey Haim. He would be endlessly sweet, funny, and even-tempered. He would make movies forever. It would be perfect. If you were a tween in the late Eighties and early Nineties, then you understand that a little piece of perfect died with him. He was part of our dreams.
Regardless of where life took him, Corey Haim’s talent is undeniable. Even his earliest performances reveal the pathos and vulnerability that made him so endearing and relatable. He was funny and cute, genuine and real. Had he not possessed these qualities himself, he never would have been able to bring them to the screen.
If you never knew what the fuss was all about, or if you would simply like to remember Corey as he was, I would recommend checking out Murphy’s Romance and Silver Bullet, two 1985 films that hinted at great things to come. Just one year later, he would bring Lucas to life in a performance that any veteran actor would be pleased to call their own. The Lost Boys followed in 1987 -
flat out one of the best things to come out of the Eighties.
Things would drift downhill after that point, but Haim’s place in film history was secure. For the roles he gave us as a child and a teen, he will be remembered with love and affection.
If you grew up with the movies of Corey Feldman and Corey Haim, chances are you freaked out with excitement and delight when you heard about the new reality show, The Two Coreys. Oh, maybe you disguised your excitement with a little well-timed eye rolling, or perhaps a loud disgusted groan, but you know that deep down you were dying to see it. My own excitement increased exponentially when I saw that the press packet included "Access to Interviews". After picking my jaw up off my desk, I urged our Webmistress to sign us up. So she did. And the possibility of me speaking to the Coreys was cast into the universe. It was a long shot, sure, but could I really pass it up? Heck no! Just the night before I'd thought of something I wanted to ask Corey Feldman - what if I could actually do it?!
It would have been unprofessional of me not to prepare at least a little, so I started doing some research. I mean, here I'd said I wanted an interview - I couldn't exactly be all surprised if it came through, could I? I didn't want to ask questions that had been asked a million times before, and I didn't want to be stuck in the 80's. I quickly found several lively and articulate interviews with Corey Feldman covering his family life, child stardom, music, vegetarianism, etc. I've kind of had my eye on him, so no surprises there, but what about Haim? Where the hell are all the interviews with him? And who is that freak sitting next to Feldman at that Lost Boys signing? Oh holy crap, that IS Corey Haim! By then I was starting to get scared, and seeing a clip of Haim chewing out Feldman's wife on The Two Coreys didn't help. He just seems so unwieldy. What if the interview came through and they stuck me with him? What if he suddenly flipped out and said something mean to me? And what could I possibly ask him? My mind was crawling with questions for Feldman, but from Haim, all I want to know is "Dude, what happened to you?"
Weirdly, it was always Corey Feldman that I was afraid to tangle with, despite the fact that he's in five of my all time favorite movies - Gremlins, The Goonies, Stand By Me, The Lost Boys, and The Burbs. I always imagined him as a real life combination of Mouth, Teddy DuChamp, and The Frog Brothers, and Wil Wheaton's description of him in Just a Geek pretty much confirmed my suspicions. On the other hand, Corey Haim was always the thoughtful mouth-breather, sort of the shy sensitive type in movies like Silver Bullet and Lucas. If you'd asked me at age thirteen which of the two I would want to marry/talk to/get stuck with on a desert island I would have answered immediately: Corey Haim. If you asked me today, I would answer just as immediately: Corey Feldman. My, how times have changed.
Or have they? Obviously the interview never happened, but watching The Two Coreys is horribly fascinating. Just as I once played sick so I could stay home from school and watch Dream a Little Dream, I find myself wanting more, more, and more of the Coreys. Sure it's lame that it's a scripted reality show (isn't that an oxymoron?), but they're like little zoo animals. Everything they do is endlessly interesting: "Look! They're talking! They're eating! They're fighting with each other!" And in one particularly smarmy scene, Haim gets the number of a beautiful girl in a signing line. Ewww! As easily wooed as I am by celebrities, even I'm a little skeeved out by that one. So I ask you, who's your favorite Corey? Which one would you give your number to? Has that answer changed since 1987?
Looking back at the 
