Wow! Such a good movie.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Exquisite-looking vampire outing from Hammer Films, quite beautifully photographed by Alan Hume and scored by James Bernard, was the studio's attempt to keep the genre going without the services of their star, Christopher Lee. Plot concerns newlywed couple in early 1900s Bavaria lost on the roadway and running out of petrol near the castle of one Dr. Ravna (Noel Willman). He invites them to dinner, where he checks out the Mrs. A few days later, the couple is invited to a masquerade ball, where the husband is drugged and the wife taken away into the clutches of Ravna, the vampire prince among a throng of devoted bloodsuckers. Marvelous tale comes complete with its very own Van Helsing in the guise of Clifford Evans' Professor Zimmer, who has been waiting to exterminate Ravna for many moons. Director Don Sharp doesn't rush through this narrative; he takes his time to set the stage, though buffs may find his pacing a bit slow. Sharp certainly doesn't skimp on the bloodletting, particularly at the rousing finish. Good show! *** from ****

"The Kiss of the Vampire" is one movie from the Hammer studio that doesn't seem to be talked about much - if at all. Watching it, it doesn't take long to figure out some possible reasons why. For starters, the story of the movie is for the most part made up of various clichéd situations we have seen in many other horror movies before. It starts off with a honeymooning couple getting stuck in the countryside, where they are soon invited by a mysterious stranger for dinner at his mansion, and eventually the husband finds that his bride has disappeared and he can't convince authorities that the stranger had something to do with the disappearance... Must I go on with telling that story? Well, actually I guess the familiar story could have worked again had the filmmakers tried hard enough to liven things up. But except for a kind of silly climax (which I will not reveal), there's not much life in this telling. The biggest problem is that this familiar story is stretched out past the breaking point. For example, the husband does not find that his bride has disappeared until more than half the movie has gone by.The production values aren't bad, and there is some decent acting on display, so the movie isn't a total loss. All the same, I think that most modern day viewers will find this movie very routine and tired. I would only recommend it to serious Hammer fans.

The 1963 underrated Hammer film "Kiss of the Vampire" often gets overlooked because of the lack of the Lee/Cushing/Fisher tandem, and also because it lacks the traditional vampire formula. That is unfortunate because "Kiss" could very well pass as a psychological thriller in a similar vein as a Hitchcock or Polanski film. Picking up on Peter Cushing's Cult of the Undead theme and taking it literally, Edward de Souza and Jennifer Daniel play Geraldb and Marianne Harcourt,honeymooners who are stranded in a strange town with a dark secret, and the loss of a child. Soon, the young couple is lured to the castle of Dr. Ravna and ultimately they are separated, Marianne seduced into the cult while the inebriated Gerald is tossed to the curb. The Hitchcock/Polanski element comes to play when de Souza becomes increasingly hysterical, demanding his wife who his hosts claim was never there - "You saw me come here with my wife, didn't you?....You opened the door for us!!!" "You came alone, sir." Of course no one has any memory of her, her name is missing from the ledger at the Inn as well as her entire wardrobe. Only one person believes him, Clifford Evans playing the eccentric, hard-drinking Professor Zimmer. Evan is an interesting antithesis to Peter Cushing and Andrew Keir, two godly men who would never resort to the dark arts while Evans has suffered personal loss and has no qualms about fighting fire with fire. Another quality about this film is that it could almost be seen as a social commentary about an assault upon the traditional family unit. The innkeepers daughter Tanya has been led astray, and Evans describes his own loss in terms that could be associated with the 60's drugs sex and cult influences. Scares are replaced by mood and atmosphere, such as the creepy masked ball where everyone has stopped dancing to admire their newest victim, and the obvious nod to Brides of Dracula where Tanya tries to resurrect her friend in the cemetery. This is one of those unique films where multiple viewings reveal hidden treasures.

Heading through the countryside on their honeymoon, a young couple stranded at a desolate inn find a local's welcoming château hides a coven of vampire followers who he intends to add with her presence forcing him to fight them to regain her and stop the creatures.This here was a somewhat decent entry in the genre. The film's best part is the opening, which is classic as the funerary procession done in Latin through the foggy graveyard is quite impressive and soon turns over into the staking which is a gruesome twist that is nicely done, the blood flow from the coffin is all the better and makes the event seem all the more creepy and impressive. That it segues into a nice scene where a couple is attacked by a supernatural wind-gust while out in the woods, featuring all manner of howling winds and perfectly-timed-to-just-miss branches in their path allows for a grand opening that works well. There's tons of good stuff as well with how this one builds upon the mystery about the inhabitants of the castle and their secret group, as the events of their first encounter over dinner meeting everyone with just an air of strangeness to them before it starts in on the wonderfully well-done change-over of her being tricked into going with their intentions over him and aided nicely with the efforts of those around to further their ruse. That carries nicely from the rather nicely done costume party, which here comes across as something that is really interesting and fun, features some really great action and suspense into it that holds this up and the subsequent rescue provides plenty of fun and surprises, most notably the different attempts that it uses is something to enjoy. The last part that works here is the ending, as not only is the main attack using black magic and necromancy a novel take on the genre that's something to enjoy, but the vampire bat attack on the congregation is a lot of fun, especially as it's a long, drawn-out battle that has a lot of good stuff to it seeing the bats fly around the large, lavish castle feeding on the cult. It's really a lot of fun, and helps to make the film interesting, but it does have a few problems. The main one here is the lethargic and absolutely maddening pace this employs to get absolutely anywhere. The fact that the vampire cult is introduced at the very end, then gets rushed through to provide the climax is something just proves that there's some really huge faults with how this one is paced. It's not that there's an eternity that happens between something, but it's also the fact that it feels the need to do so with nary any form of excitement passed along through the event. That's the main fault in here with that, since it manages to make the events seem unimportant and it's just a really terrible feel to have from a film. As well, the set-up is a little clichéd, and this results in the film also giving off a really familiar feel that can ruin it by not having the best feeling when repeated viewing. The main thing, though, is the fact that this one is just super-slow and really dull.Today's Rating/PG: Violence.