Ah the loneliness of the long living vampire, at least that’s how Alex (Daniel Goddard) feel when he meets and falls in love with the mortal woman, Estelle (Katherine Hawkes) whose father, being a scientist may just be able to cure him of his curse so that he and Estelle can live happily ever after. Things, however, are not so simple in Vampireland as it would appear that her father George’s (Nick Jameson) boss, Victor Price (Eric Etabari) actually just wants Alex so that he and his cronies can live forever. Throw in some problems in the wider vampire family and a stereotypical vampire hunter and the game is afoot...

Kiss of the Vampire (2009, 89 min) was directed by Joe Tornatore from a script by Katherine Hawkes. Straight off it would be fair to say that this is a B movie whose weaknesses outweigh its strengths.

On the up side the film has decent production values and director Joe Tornatore, whose sixth feature this is, directs the movie adequately, though all those years as a working actor have rubbed off giving the pace and framing a much more made for television look than a feature.

This is Katherine Hawkes first venture as a writer and it shows. The script tries to cover too much ground in the given time with too many narrative strands to tie up. Alex and Estelle fall in love in a ridiculously short space of time making their relationship unlikely. The audience have little or no time to actually believe that Alex would give up his immortality for a woman he hardly knows. On top of that she throws in a vampire hunter and the Illuminati.

The most disappointing thing about the film is the vampires themselves. Since the nineteenth century there has been a progression in vampire lore, turning the once animalistic creatures into beings of beauty and elegance, Hawkes seems to be reversing the trend as all her vampires look like hoods and hookers and not in a good way.

The actors do what they can with the script, but its weakness leads to them having to react in improbable ways, for a start no one seems to question the existence of vampires, you can almost see the embarrassment in some of the actors faces as they cope with melodramatic dialogue more at home in a soap opera than a feature.

The film is presented in 16.9 widescreen aspect ratio with a 5.1 audio track. The disc’s only extra is the trailer.

4

Charles Packer