Kiss of the Vampire

I keep dipping into The Region One DVD 'Hammer Horror Series' and loving every minute of it…

Kiss of the Vampire

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‘Giant devil bats… summoned from the caves of hell to destroy the lust of the vampires! He used his evil science to breed a race of the living dead!'

Director Don Sharpe
Writer Anthony Hinds

Stars Edward de Souza (Gerald Harcourt), Jennifer Daniel (Marianne Harcourt), Clifford Evans (Professor Zimmer), Noel Willman (Dr Ravna), Barry Warren (Carl Ravna), Jacqui Wallis (Sabena), Isobel Black (Tania), Peter Maddern (Bruno), Noel Howlett (Father Xavier)

Certificate X
Year 1962

Dastardly Plot
Having never seen a Hammer film before, a young honeymooning couple accept an invitation to dinner at the spooky and ominous castle when their car breaks down in Bavaria. But are they aware that their charming new friends are only trying to lure them into joining their infernal, vampire cult?
What do you think?

Vicious Verdict
OK I have to admit it – This is one of my favourite Hammer movies. There’s no Lee or Cushing so I’m sure some might think that a little heretical but the absence of the usual stars meant the studio had to work a little harder to pull in the crowds and it shows.
Ironically for a movie set in the early 20th century Kiss of the Vampire manages to out Gothic most of Hammer’s output. We get a strong turn from Edward de Souza who gets a chance to move beyond his yawn-by-numbers performance in the Phantom of the Opera and actually try some of this acting lark, while Clifford Evans steals the show as the local vampire hunter. And don’t be thinking that Zimmer is a cut-price Van Helsing either. This isn’t Cushing’s whiter than white gentleman but a religious man torn apart from grief who may be wise and knows the odd anti-nosfuratu spell but also someone who looses himself in the bottom of a glass at times.
In fact, strange though it may be to say it, there is a strong sense of realism here. The vampires, while undoubtedly supernatural in origin, are no stronger than their human victims, can be dispatched easily (as shown by the vampire butler’s unfortunate demise beneath a polystyrene obelisk) and squabble like a women’s institute meeting at their coven meetings.
Sure it’s a bit creaky at points and the effects are wobbly at best (what do you expect from Hammer anyway?) but there is real brilliance and innovation here. Sit back and drink deeply. You won’t regret it.

Terrifying Trivia

• Isobel Black, who plays Tania, popped into a local restaurant for lunch after her morning shoot but the silly thing forget to take her fangs out first. The waiter, obviously the local wag, told her “our steaks aren’t that tough!” Oh, how they must have laughed.
  
  
• The Brides of Dracula was originally going to end with the marauding hordes of vampire bats seen here but a tight budget soon saw off that idea. Obviously by the time of Kiss of the Vampire they’d managed to rustle up the pennies to make the batty nightmare a reality.
  

Quaking Quotes
“When the devil attacks a man or woman with this foul disease of the vampire the unfortunate human being can do one of two things. Either he can seek God through the church and pray for absolution or he can persuade himself that his filthy perversion is some kind of new and wonderful experience to be shared by the favoured few. Then he tries to persuade others to join his new cult.”

High Points
The dreamy slow-mo as the vampire bite is burnt out of Zimmer’s wrist, Gerald using his own blood to paint a crucifix in order to hold back the undead and of course the shock opening with the gushing coffin.

Low Points
Well I suppose, begrudgingly it has to be the rubber bats on strings I suppose. Nice idea, shame about the budget (although the vamp who gets his suffocated by a bat in the chops scared the Bela Lugosis out of the me when I was a kid)

Skulls out of Five