Rendering: Adam Pardee/STAFF.

I just spent a few days with my kids in Santa Cruz, where the 35th anniversary of “The Lost Boys” was being celebrated.

They do so because it was filmed there and people cherish vampire movies because murder was legal in the ’80s and vampires went emo in the 2000s and can suffer very hurt feelings now if you say the wrong thing while they eat your brains. That is very sexy.

The publicity drifted north to the Bay Area, where a writer younger than one of my plants recently wrote another “har-har, look at how dumb the ’80s were because I didn’t live then” piece that all the kids laugh at.

I get it. They ’80s were ridiculous, even in the ’80s. And I’m now used to being a member of the laughed-at generation. My 20- and 14-year-old daughters laughed at me for three days because I grunted through at least three cramps every time I pulled my carcass off a ride. I’ve also evolved into the dad who takes hundreds of photos of my blurry finger standing alongside my daughters, which I guess isn’t acceptable on InstaTwit.

This writer har-har’d about “The Lost Boys” star Kiefer Sutherland’s mullet and how he likely invented it. I guess that quickly spread and became ’80s canon, because Sutherland – like me, now old enough to scream “MY BACK” every time he hits that last left turn on the Giant Dipper – did some har-haring himself, telling Google Entertainment:

“But (director Joel Schumacher) wanted my hair long. And so I actually think I might’ve been responsible, or at least partially responsible, for creating the mullet. And for that, I’ll apologize to the death.”

OK … stop there, Keef. The record needs to be straightened out. Because if there’s anyone who lived ’80s stupidity, it’s me.

First off, there’s no apologizing allowed. We lived the ’80s. We loved the ’80s. Take responsibility for telling the truth about the ’80s. You and I both wore our friend’s mom’s eyeliner and may have seen Stryper live. Honesty will set us free.

There’s no generation’s fashion (since maybe the ’40s, which was unbearably cool) not worth making fun of. I will also admit that having flammable volcano hair while clothed in stripes, dots and zippers going nowhere were a bit much. People watched a Prince video, snorted more cocaine, and immediately went to the mall to buy the clothes John Adams wore writing the Declaration of Independence.

No one called the hairstyle in question a “mullet” until the early-to-mid-’90s, according to my formerly inebriated memory. Just when we college kids were getting used to Al Gore’s Internet, along came a wonderful website I believe was called “Fear the Mullet,” featuring photos of unsuspecting people still wearing their hair long in the back (party) while short in the front (business).

Right … ha-ha. We laughed at people who hadn’t evolved into wearing jorts, oxblood Doc Martens boots with white socks and flannel shirts to formal events (At least guys weren’t getting perms anymore).

As a matter of fact, I sported a mullet four years before “The Lost Boys,” when two attractive girls talked me into letting them cut my hair into what they called a “bi-level” in 1983. I was 16 and pretty girls could talk me into lighting myself on fire and rolling myself into a dry ravine, as long as they laughed.

My reasoning was simple: That Bono dude had one. [Editor’s note: Only I am allowed to make fun of Bono’s mullet, because I do it out of love].

I was a metal guy, but still considered myself forward-thinking. Rockers were just starting to discover U2. Plus, Jack Blades of Night Ranger had the most glorious, well-conditioned, thick and well-layered bi-level I’d ever seen (Years later, I met Jack and barely stopped myself from touching his hair).

Maybe Sutherland didn’t invent the mullet, but perhaps he just made it popular?

No. The mullet had spread like COVID by 1987. “The Lost Boys” was definitely part of the pop culture fabric of 1987. There was no escaping the Coreys (Feldman and Haim) back then. But it was the 33rd most viewed film of 1987, according to Box Office Mojo. We were quoting Eddie Murphy in “Beverly Hills Cop 2,” Sean Connery in “The Untouchables” and talking about boiling rabbits after seeing “Fatal Attraction.” I remember becoming aware of the movie mostly because of Jami Gertz (who was supposed to marry me but backed out because of some silly reason like not knowing me) and the soundtrack’s amazing “Good Times” collaboration by INXS and Jimmy Barnes. “Summer School,” starring Mark Harmon, made more money.

I don’t say this to dump on “The Lost Boys.” It was a fun movie that I will now doubtless have to go watch. Sometimes we need time to truly appreciate old art. But, other than perhaps being the first movie making vampires young and sexy, it just wasn’t that big of a deal at the time. Sorry Kiefer.