Director: Don Sharp
Screenplay: Anthony Hinds
Starring: Clifford Evans, Noel Willman, Edward de Souza, Jennifer Daniel
Release Date: September 11, 1963
KISS OF THE VAMPIRE was Hammer Studios’ second attempt to sequelize HORROR OF DRACULA without the cooperation of that film’s star, Christopher Lee. Unlike the previous film, BRIDES OF DRACULA, this one features no references to Dracula or Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing, instead functioning as more of a tonal successor the two films. That is to say, the film delivers the requisite combination of candelabras and cobwebs, fanged fiends and bursting bodices that the British house of horror has made it’s name on.
Set at the turn of the 20th century, the film follows Gerald (de Souza) and Marianne (Daniel) Harcourt, a young couple on their honeymoon whose automobile runs out of fuel near a secluded village in the mountains of Bavaria. Upon arrival at a suitably sinister and deserted inn run by an elderly couple who seem to harbor a dark secret, the two lovers receive a letter from Dr. Ravna (Willman), inviting them to dine with him and his family. What the young couple doesn’t realize is that the Ravna’s are an ancient clan of bourgeoisie vampires, seeking to seduce Marianne into abandoning a life among the living and joining their satanic vampire cult. After luring them to a masked ball the following night, Gerald is drugged and awakens the next morning to discover his new wife missing, and the entire town claiming he entered the village alone. The only person not in on the conspiracy is Professor Zimmer (Evans), a drunkard staying at the inn who lost his daughter to the vampire cult. Together with Zimmer, Gerald embarks on a fight to save the soul of his beloved, using the very dark arts the vampire cultists hold sacred to send them all back to hell where they belong.
But I’ve just gone and made this picture sound far more exciting than it actually is. After a phenomenal opening scene in which Van Helsing surrogate Professor Zimmer interrupts a funeral by heaving a shovel through a coffin and into the chest of the shrieking vampire encased within, while blood gushes and the mourners flee in terror, the flick basically plateaus and maintains the same level of general okay-ness for the remainder of it’s running time. Even for it’s time I’d have to imagine the story was rather rote and predictable, basically a slight variation on countless other vampire tales, but with a mild occult twist. Edward de Souza and Jennifer Daniel make for relatively likeable leads, sharing a decent amount of chemistry and whose naiveté as to how monstrously fucked their situation has become had me genuinely rooting for them to come out of the film unscathed. It certainly helps that the vampiric cult is composed of some truly dastardly dick-heads, chiefly Barry Warren as Carl Ravna, a skilled pianist able to hypnotize Marianne with his composition, and who reveals himself to be a right awful bastard as his family’s evil scheme progresses. Carl also has two sultry sisters, Sabena and Tania, who effectively use their feminine wiles to lure Gerald away from Marianne. But as the family’s patriarch, the devilish Dr. Ravna, Noel Willman is totally ineffective, at no point conveying the seductive smoothness required of his character. He isn’t aided by the film’s make-up department, who provide some of the least-convincing fangs I’ve ever seen in a film, goofily blunt protrusions that most resemble Chiclets, resulting in laughably ludicrous bloodsucking hell beasts.
As lensed by future RETURN OF THE JEDI and LIFEFORCE cinematographer Alan Hume, the film carries with it the same lush sense of style and gothic atmosphere of other Hammer productions, along with some nice fluid camera movement that is usually missing from the studio’s offerings. The filmmaker’s make terrific use of some truly unsettling masks during the ball scene, and there is a fantastic bit towards the end of this sequence, after Marianne has been abducted and Gerald drugged, when the music abruptly halts and the soundtrack is taken over by an oppressive silence, made eerier by the grotesque visages covering the suddenly sinister faces of the vampiric guests.
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| "Let's do the time warp!!" |
Ultimately what held my interest in this film was the relationship between Gerald and Marianne, quaint though it may be. However, they come across as so pure and undeserving of the horrible fate that looms over them, and the Ravna’s are such a malignant group of characters, that I couldn’t help but cheer for the monster’s demise. The film finally builds towards a somewhat unique climax, at least for a vampire flick, in which Professor Zimmer performs an arcane ritual in order to invoke the forces of Satan to dispatch the occultists. This is all fairly exciting stuff, and the movie seems to be building towards a semi-apocalyptic climax, but they totally fumble the ball at the very last minute when it is revealed that these messengers of the devil sent to destroy the Ravna clan are actually a swarm of vampire bats, rendered as very poor animation against a matte painting of the chateau and finally, in the film’s closing moments, as ridiculous rubbery rodents propelled by strings swing wildly around the ballroom, the actors (who ought to be truly embarrassed) poorly miming being overwhelmed by these entirely unthreatening foes.
But that seems to be the way things go with these Hammer productions. They’ve always got just the right amount of class, mixed in with a fair amount of kitsch. THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE is far from a standout offering from the studio, but that’s not to say there isn’t a bit of fun to be had along the way. While it suffers from a fairly derivative story, the film offers enough ghoulish delights to earn my recommendation for viewing on cool fall evening.
My Rating:
6/10
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