IMDb RATING
6.3/10
3.3K
YOUR RATING
When car trouble strands a honeymooning couple in a small Southern European village, an aristocratic family in the area reaches out to help them with sinister consequences.When car trouble strands a honeymooning couple in a small Southern European village, an aristocratic family in the area reaches out to help them with sinister consequences.When car trouble strands a honeymooning couple in a small Southern European village, an aristocratic family in the area reaches out to help them with sinister consequences.
IMDb RATING
6.3/10
3.3K
YOUR RATING
- Director
- Writer
- Anthony Hinds(screenplay by)
- Stars
Top credits
- Director
- Writer
- Anthony Hinds(screenplay by)
- Stars
- Awards
- 1 nomination
Alf Casha
- Party Servantas Party Servant
- (uncredited)
Jimmy Charters
- Mourneras Mourner
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writer
- Anthony Hinds(screenplay by)
- All cast & crew
- See more cast details at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe rubber bats used in the movie were bought from a local branch of Woolworths.
- GoofsA crew member can be partially seen standing to the far left when the hotel owner removes the dust-cloth from the shelves in reception.
- Quotes
Professor Zimmer: 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.
- Alternate versionsRetitled "Kiss of Evil" for American TV, and considerably tampered with. Bloody scenes are cut: e.g., when Herr Zimmer cauterizes his wrist after Tanya bites him, and the pre-credits scene in which blood gushes from the coffin of Zimmer's daughter after he plunges a shovel into it (even her scream is cut from that scene). A couple of the cuts result in scenes that don't make sense any more: in the cut-for-TV version, we never do find out what Marianne sees behind the curtain, a sight which makes her scream. And when Harcourt frees his hands after being clawed by Tanya, the TV version has him escape by running across the room untouched by the vampires, who just watch him get away. As originally filmed, Harcourt, after freeing his hands, immediately smears the blood on his chest into a cross-shaped pattern: the vampires now *can't* touch him. The cut running time was made up for by the addition of scenes of a family (middle-aged husband and wife; teenage daughter) who fret and argue about the influence of the vampiric Ravna clan, but never interact with anybody else in the movie. The married couple are inserted into the pre-credits graveyard scene in place of a couple of old crones. Even the final scene of the tampered-with version features this family, instead of the original cast! The theme of the family's scenes is the social disruption the vampires bring to town: specifically, women get uppity. The wife becomes the breadwinner (by sewing the vampire clan's white robes!) as the husband's business suffers, and she browbeats him about it. The daughter disses her boyfriend in favor of Carl Ravna. Carl, unseen in these scenes, has given her a music box which plays the same hypnotic tune that he plays on the piano elsewhere in the movie. The final scene has the men magnanimously forgiving the women, who meekly apologize as they all head off to church.
- ConnectionsEdited into Cynful Movies: Kiss of the Vampire (2019)
- SoundtracksVampire Rhapsody
Performed by James Bernard
Top review
worthy but slow
"The Kiss of the Vampire" has one hell of an opening scene, but after that, the viewer must endure about thirty minutes of Dullsville as a newlywed couple arrives in a creepy European town and interacts with the strange, subdued locals. Note that the entire village seems to consist of only three people: Professor Zimmer, the innkeeper, and the innkeeper's wife. There's the Hammer casting budget for you!
Thankfully, the action picks up during the creepy masquerade ball. I also enjoy watching our hapless hero (played by the somehow likable Edward DeSouza) get humiliated by the vampires when he attempts to rescue his wife.
The sets are cool and Gothic, if obviously studio-bound; this is the kind of movie that many would call cheap, but tolerant and loving horror fans would probably describe it as quite lavish.
I have some plot-related problems. Professor Zimmer's transformation from tottering drunkard to know-it-all savior is too abrupt and unconvincing. I can't understand why he doesn't stop the Harcourts from visiting Ravna, since he's so sure that the latter is a vampire. All he does is issue cryptic warnings - who's that going to put off? I also don't understand why the vampires try to convince de Souza that he never had a wife. Do they really think that trick's going to work? Of COURSE he knows he had a wife! They really should just kill or convert him; setting him loose to make trouble is an unconscionably stupid decision. Anyway, they drop this little lie so quickly that one wonders why they bothered in the first place.
Other problems include a scene involving whiny, panicking vampires (hardly the most terrifying villains), and the strange lack of music in the climatic scene. As usual for a horror film, certain casual asides in the dialogue are more interesting than the story itself; Zimmer describes his daughter's conversion into a vampire in the most fascinating terms, and even suggests that vampires can be redeemed through faith in God. All of which amounts to nothing, of course, since Hammer films can never be too deep. What we get is the usual fight over a pretty girl, the staple of vampire movies for way too many years.
Groaning aside, all Hammer films do have a certain charm, including the slow ones. A worthwhile attempt is made to make the vampires seem elegant and mysterious, and their eerie piano song does add to the atmosphere. I just wish the movie held up a little better; with a rewrite and some nips and tucks, this could've been one of the greats. Alas, as it stands, it's merely mediocre.
Thankfully, the action picks up during the creepy masquerade ball. I also enjoy watching our hapless hero (played by the somehow likable Edward DeSouza) get humiliated by the vampires when he attempts to rescue his wife.
The sets are cool and Gothic, if obviously studio-bound; this is the kind of movie that many would call cheap, but tolerant and loving horror fans would probably describe it as quite lavish.
I have some plot-related problems. Professor Zimmer's transformation from tottering drunkard to know-it-all savior is too abrupt and unconvincing. I can't understand why he doesn't stop the Harcourts from visiting Ravna, since he's so sure that the latter is a vampire. All he does is issue cryptic warnings - who's that going to put off? I also don't understand why the vampires try to convince de Souza that he never had a wife. Do they really think that trick's going to work? Of COURSE he knows he had a wife! They really should just kill or convert him; setting him loose to make trouble is an unconscionably stupid decision. Anyway, they drop this little lie so quickly that one wonders why they bothered in the first place.
Other problems include a scene involving whiny, panicking vampires (hardly the most terrifying villains), and the strange lack of music in the climatic scene. As usual for a horror film, certain casual asides in the dialogue are more interesting than the story itself; Zimmer describes his daughter's conversion into a vampire in the most fascinating terms, and even suggests that vampires can be redeemed through faith in God. All of which amounts to nothing, of course, since Hammer films can never be too deep. What we get is the usual fight over a pretty girl, the staple of vampire movies for way too many years.
Groaning aside, all Hammer films do have a certain charm, including the slow ones. A worthwhile attempt is made to make the vampires seem elegant and mysterious, and their eerie piano song does add to the atmosphere. I just wish the movie held up a little better; with a rewrite and some nips and tucks, this could've been one of the greats. Alas, as it stands, it's merely mediocre.
helpful•177
- dr_foreman
- Sep 8, 2004
Details
- Runtime1 hour 28 minutes
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
- 1.66 : 1
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By what name was The Kiss of the Vampire (1963) officially released in Canada in English?
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