The Kiss of the Vampire (1963)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Hammer seems to have had a creative crisis of sorts regarding its vampire output in the eight-years absence, between the 1958 "Dracula" and the 1966 "Dracula: Prince of Darkness," of Christopher Lee in the Dracula role. "The Brides of Dracula" (1960) had Peter Cushing return as Van Helsing, but it's a dull retread, and kid-vamp Baron Meinster was a poor heir to Lee. Absent Lee, Cushing and any Dracula connection this outing, "The Kiss of the Vampire," at least, has a grown man in the role of its head vampire. And although it's slow going for a while after the opening credits, if you stick with it, you're in for a few treats.This probably would've benefited by being cut down to closer to an hour's length. The early automobile-out-of-gas episode, for instance, where the wife is left alone and, gasp, nothing happens, could've been left out. Or the innkeeper's sad wife, who disappears in the second half of the film, may as well have not been in the first half either. There probably could've been fewer protentive looks early on, as well. You can't really create mystery with such eyeballing when the movie's title tells us there's going to be vampires.Now, for the treats, we get one to start off when the Professor thrusts a shovel through the coffin and the heart of his turned daughter—resulting in the kind of blood splatter Hammer is beloved for. Vampires as decadent cultists is another good idea. Roman Polanski must've seen this for his ballroom sequence in "The Dance of the Vampires," a.k.a. "The Fearless Vampire Killers" (1967). The husband gives us Hammer's best makeshift cross yet by drawing it on his chest in his own blood. And for the grand finale, they realize the black-magic climax that, reportedly, Cushing thought (probably rightly) unwholesome for his Van Helsing in "The Brides of Dracula." Fortunately, the Van Helsing stand-in here, the Professor Zimmer, has no such qualms. The fake-bats biting the vampire cultists to death is just deliciously trashy.

Stylish Hammer Horror, better than the first Dracula. Acting, music, cinematography, story - all good. Not great. A bit slow in spots. The party scene and costumes were great. The vampires were not too convincing. This is still much better than the first Hammer Dracula. That story, and Lee's acting sucked.Stylish Hammer Horror, better than the first Dracula. Acting, music, cinematography, story - all good. Not great. A bit slow in spots. The party scene and costumes were great. The vampires were not too convincing. This is still much better than the first Hammer Dracula. That story, and Lee's acting sucked.Stylish Hammer Horror, better than the first Dracula. Acting, music, cinematography, story - all good. Not great. A bit slow in spots. The party scene and costumes were great. The vampires were not too convincing. This is still much better than the first Hammer Dracula. That story, and Lee's acting sucked.

I'm not going to rehash the plot of the movie, because that has been done by most of the earlier reviews. I'm going to just touch on what I think worked-and what I think didn't. In terms of the atmosphere, cinematography, etc., I think they did a good job. It had the foreboding, eerie set up, for the most part. (Also, from this point, things might get a little spoilery.)There were so many things they did in this movie, IMO, that they really didn't set up properly. This movie is definitely formulaic-and I'm not criticizing it for that. What I am going to find fault with, though, is leaving part of the formula out. 19th century husband leaves his new wife sitting in their useless motorcar because they ran out of gas, and he needs to go get help. OK. It's also not necessarily bad that she got uncomfortable and decided to try and catch up with hubby, at least if they had bothered to have something unsettling happen before she decided to get out-but they didn't. Stuff happened after she got out of the car. Of course, part of this was so she could run into the stern Professor fellow who gave her a cryptic warning, which, of course, also did not help calm her already frayed nerves. Another thing I found out of sync was the "inn." It seemed like it was designed to be the "Ritz" of small Bavarian inns, but why? I don't know if we were supposed to deduce that the village once was more prosperous and merited such an establishment, but it seemed out of place. It would be like finding a deserted town in the Nevada desert that still had a fancy Hilton hotel there welcoming whatever guest might wander in- which is pretty much what happened here. Also, the innkeeper moderated from seeming happily oblivious to what was going on to being complicit- even if they were being coerced(and I think that was certainly implied.)The wife's behavior became more understandable once they showed the scene where she was grieving over her daughter-a scene which I thought was very effective, and probably the best acting in the whole movie. Even the main couple's faces expressed their understanding that they had almost intruded on a private, sad moment as they quietly withdrew to leave the poor women to grieve. Speaking of the main couple, they were naturally, happily naive. The man, of course, was one of means-inherited, naturally. He wasn't a snobby sort, though he certainly had no problem with the local "uppity-ups" recognizing his obvious value and integrity, sight unseen. Again, this isn't necessarily something that was unrealistic in terms of the "upper"class being, perhaps, as too trusting when dealing with someone they have assumed is also "upper class."Let me skip on to what I found was the biggest flaw in the show-and that was how "ho hum" the bad guys-and gals-were. The predecessor to this movie was, I believe(at least in terms of vampire movies)Brides of Dracula-and I found the vampire in that to be more intimidating, even with his fake, fluffy red wig and foppish appearance-than most of the vamps in this movie. It was almost laughable when the "hero" managed to grab his wife and run out of a whole room full of vampires-with almost none of them in pursuit except their one, I assume, human lackey. We in the audience needed much more exposition as to why this Drac wannabe had a castle full of other vampires who seemed to have nothing better to do than to either quiver in fear for various reasons, or carp at their "master." I mean, the village was supposedly pretty deserted- so, who was left for this house full of vampires to victimize and "feed" on? Even the visitors to the countryside were supposed to be rare- and the two naive victims had made a wrong turn to start with to end up out of gas in the middle of some obscure Bavarian forest. The one actor who did a decent job, IMO, was the "Van Helsing" type-Professor Zimmerman. In what screen time he was given he managed to convey that he wasn't just a grumpy drunk-but that there was a good reason he was the way he was, as well as a method to his madness.Last, but not least, I feel the climax could have been done much better. I saw it mentioned that, for some reason, they decided not to release this movie around the same time as the famed Hitchcock movie, The Birds-not because Hammer didn't want to compete with that movie(though that certainly would make sense)but because of the similar, mind-blowing "event." I can see the slight similarity, but the Hitchcock film did not shy away from showing, as much as they were allowed by the movie codes, how gruesome being attacked by a huge flock of birds could be. Likewise, this movie could have added to the discomfort-and certainly the horror-if they had portrayed, like The Birds, at least as much as possible(taking into consideration the aforementioned codes and the Hammer budget)a much more mutilated bunch of vampires being chowed down on, I assume, by a horde of vampire bats(the irony not supposed to be lost on we, the audience.) This was just about as "toothless," in terms of scares, a vampire movie was I have ever seen-and I've seen a bunch, at my age.

This is a fine horror film that is strictly by-the-numbers Hammer fare. The only thing new to the vampire genre this offers is the end scene when the vampires are eradicated in an unusual way--a way that would make Ed Wood proud.The film centers on newlyweds Edward de Souza and Jennifer Daniel who get lost and suffer car trouble in a remote location. The only people that seem to live in the area are the kindly old innkeeper (Peter Madden) and his wife and the eccentric, lavish, and quite uppity Dr. Ravna (Noel Willman) and his children Carl (Barry Warren) and Sabena (Jacquie Wallis). The Ravna's invite the newlyweds to their mansion but they have designs on the lovely Jennifer Daniel. They have no use for her husband however. After they attend a ball at the Ravna's mansion, Jennifer Daniel is abducted and de Souza must save her with the help of drunken professor Zimmer (Cliff Evans) who has a score to settle with the Ravnas.STORY: $$$ (The story is that old hat about a young couple out of place in a rustic, country setting. The wealthy Ravnas take an interest in the wife while the husband must save her. We also get the know-it-all character in Zimmer who does the Van Helsing routine. The only thing original about the script is the end--I won't ruin it for you).ACTING: $$$ (The acting is fine. Both Noel Willman and Barry Warren are quite good in their crotchety vampire roles. They each exude arrogance and don't bother to mask the fact that they fancy Jennifer Daniel in front of her husband. Jacquie Wallis looks good as Sabena but has little to do, and the same can be said about Isobel Black as the innkeeper's daughter the Ravnas abducted. Edward de Souza is merely adequate as the hero while Cliff Evans is effectively aloof and curmudgeonly as Zimmer. Jennifer Daniel, who possesses an uncanny sophistication, is quite good as the object of the vampire's desire).NUDITY: $ (Jennifer Daniel has a topless scene but since this was made in 1963--before Ingrid Pitt and Madeline Smith gave Hammer some high quality skin--her back is to the camera).