Don't kiss vampires

I've been on a horror binge lately, both watching and enjoying many of the excellent podcasts that are out there.

It's no secret to anyone who's been here a while that I'm a fan of Hammer Horror, and to my delight I found a couple that I had never seen before.

So today we're talking about The Kiss of the Vampire (1963). Mild spoilers – sort of.

I say sort of because, well, this movie is mostly predictable to a fault.

Gerald and Marianne Harcourt, a couple of newly weds on their honeymoon run out of gas in their awesome 1903 De Dion Bouton model Q. They stay the night at a local hotel who’s only guest is the brusque and heavy drinking Professor Zimmer.

The same night they are invited to the local castle for dinner by Dr. Ravna and his children. The following day they are invited to a sumptuous ball at the castle where Gerald is drugged and Marianne is turned into a vampire, sort of.

Gerald wakes up and is told by everyone that he has no wife and that he came alone, drank too much and made a scene. The police won't help him and he despairs until Zimmer tells him the truth; Ravna is the master of a cult of vampires.

Together they rescue Marianne and then enact an occult ritual that destroys the vampires and Marianne is released from the vampires influence. The end.

The Kiss of the Vampire is a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, the idea of using occult powers to defeat the vampires instead of the old stake to the heart is a welcome change and the ritual is well filmed. The movie is over all well made and the atmosphere is fine. The part where everyone insists that Gerald isn't married was really good.

On the other hand, these are the weakest, most ineffective and lame vampires ever. They really don't do anything. When Gerald and Zimmer rescue Marianne from the castle, they are pursued by the vampires hulking servant, and once he is killed, they can seal the castle by drawing crosses with distilled garlic on the doors and the vampires are trapped. All they do is sit around and complain.

This bunch is far removed from Dracula and the Karnsteins, who are actual predators and thus are actually scary.

This brings me to the vampire “cult”. They like to gather in a room vaguely decorated in an Asian style and they wear white robes and sit in a square on the floor. It looked so much like the martial arts movies of the 60's that I half expected Bruce Lee to kick in the door and beat them up.

And what is the deal with having a vampire cult? Creating more vampires that still has to drink blood creates a greater demand for victims, which increases the likelihood that they will be discovered exponentially.Very silly.

All in all TkotV is a very mixed bag. I didn't hate it, but I can't really recommend it either. It's certainly not one of the great Hammer vampire movies, but from a completionist point of view, it's worth watching. Decide for yourself.

That's that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!