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Initially developed as Dracula 3 and incorporating discarded elements from Bride of Dracula,
The Kiss of the Vampire is both classic Hammer horror, and yet also something of an anomaly.
The plot is instantly familiar: young couple, Gerald and Marianne,
stranded in a Bavarian town where all is not quite right,
‘No one ever comes here now’
and end up at the local castle, meeting its mysterious owner,
‘My name is Ravna’
who is more than he seems.
But the plot also introduces a cult into the mix, shades of 1968’s The Devil Rides Out.
'Will leave a space there.'
It’s easy enough to mentally recast Noel Willman with Christopher Lee
and Clifford Evans, playing vampire hunter Professor Zimmer, Peter Cushing.
But both men make the roles their own and there’s no suggestion of this being second choice casting.
In fact the entire cast is largely free of familiar Hammer faces
and while much of Hammer’s first rate crew remains intact,
director Don Sharp was a newcomer to the company,
and this would be the only Hammer film of cinematographer Alan Hume,
later a mainstay of Hammer rival, Amicus,
though he certainly captures the Hammer aesthetic here.
But the real difference here is a tonal one, despite a typically Hammer opening.
Sharp and screenwriter Anthony Hinds, create a far more subdued atmosphere than you expect from Hammer,
and one redolent with tension,
the piano scene in particular – reminiscent of Universal’s House of Dracula – is pure suspense,
as mesmeric to the audience as it is to Marianne.
Kiss of the Vampire is a film that can dazzle with its colour and vitality
and it doesn’t short change on the expected action,
but it also plays a slow, teased out guessing game,
keeping things tense between the bloodier set pieces.
It looks like Hammer, the sets instantly familiar,
it sounds like Hammer,
‘Ride, ride like the devil’
with a score by James Bernard,
but it feels like Hammer from another angle
– which I suppose it what it is; a new director coming in and putting a fresh spin on the house style.
The ending, which had been intended for Brides of Dracula until Peter Cushing objected to it,
is an issue.
The rubber bats came from Woolworths and there’s no getting around how awful they look,
but it’s also a climax that doesn’t quite fit the film.
‘I conjur thee in the name of the great God’
Partly because it’s too easy, but also because this is a very small film,
Ravna has none of the grandiose plans that would preoccupy Dracula in some of his later outings for the company.
'They can't leave until I say so.'
The ending also caused problems with the film’s release as it was judged too close to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds
and so was held back in the US for over a year.
But that ending is a small problem with an otherwise enjoyably familiar yet enjoyably different Hammer outing.
Thanks for watching. Outside of their Dracula and Karnstein series, Hammer made 3 vampire films,
4 if you include Countess Dracula,
which is your favourite and why? Let us know in the comments below.