Cineanalyst 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.

GL84 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.

lulu-17985 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.

AaronCapenBanner Don Sharp directed this entertaining vampire tale(not connected with the Dracula series) that sees honeymooning Gerald and Marianne Harcourt(played by Edward De Souza & Jennifer Daniel) develop car trouble on their driving trip in Europe, but are aided by a Count Ravna(played by Noel Willman) who invites them to his castle for a costume party after they check into a local inn. The party takes a dark turn after Gerald is drugged, and told that he has no wife! Confused and outraged, he seeks the help of Professor Zimmer(played by Clifford Evans) who is also staying at the inn, and informs him that Ravna leads a vampire cult that turned his own daughter, and now wants Marianne... Another atmospheric horror from Hammer with a fine score and direction. A pity it couldn't have brought back Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, but performances are still good, and leads to an exciting finale.