Blog#350!!!! Vampire Grab Bag Week: The Kiss of the Vampire

Wow we have arrived at 350 blogs already!  That is simply amazing.

Howdy all and apologies for not starting Day 3 of Vampire Grab Bag Week yesterday.  A different sleep schedule threw me off so clearly there is no reason why we don’t excavate another title out of the bag today.  How about another Hammer vampire film but without Christopher Lee?  Balderdash you might say and many would agree as this was intended to be the third Dracula but the story got mangled and garbled to no end in sight completely detracting the whole Dracula standing and was made a standalone vampire movie.  So grab your cross, holy water, garlic and perhaps a good axe or falchion.  This is The Kiss of the Vampire.

 

Pardon, the three bean salad backfired.

Servant: You keep away from here, or we’ll set the spoilers on you!

Thankfully with no association with the Karnstein trilogy our story takes place not in Austria but in the far mountain range of Bavaria, Germany.  Vampires dig chocolate don’t you know.    Our young honeymooning couple having just arrived in this warm inviting village runs in a spot of bad luck to have their car breakdown at the most inopportune time.  Gerald (Edward De Souza of The Phantom of the Opera, The Mill on the Floss, Doctor Who, Mogul and The Spy Who Loved Me) and Marianne Harcourt (Jennifer Daniel of The Reptile, The Vortex, People Like Us, The Collectors and Love Is All There Is) are quite annoyed as they are out of gas and have no means for AAA so Gerald legs it after leaving his bride with the luggage to the nearest village in the hopes for a tow or gasoline to carry.  Young Marianne feels as though she is being spied on and finally can bare it no more, flees the car and heads towards the village about a half hour behind her husband.  A craggily old man channels his best Crazy Ralph impression and warns her to stay far away from the cast and to leave the area ASAP, PDQ and give it wings.

Slow it down kids, you're British so no emotions needed.

As predicted the tiny village being so isolated has no gas station to speak of but a brawny fellow helps Gerald with the car and the pair stay in a small inn ran by a little elderly couple that seem overtly superstitious and not very friendly.  Travel Book guide says it is worse than Motel Hell or the accommodations of Eaten Alive.     One of the local girls died prior and a funeral is being held; not be for a shabbily dressed fellow named Professor Zimmer flips her coffin lid and stakes her.  A blood curdling shriek omits from the coffin followed but a geyser of blood erupts from the corpse.

Keeping true Dracula standing a coachman arrives from the local squire informing them of the castle’s hospitality for stranded travelers.  Yes that castle they have been warned off from.  So of course our nitwits head there for turning down such an invitation would be the height of bad manners.  The locals shake and scratch their heads at the sheer bravado/stupidity of the couple and pray for their very souls.

So what to take away from this film?  Well apparently vampire cult and Satanism are one and the same as it was with the Karnstein Trilogy, this entire town somehow thrives in spite of vampire raids every so often and oh yes let us warn newcomers but not give them the full skinny. The rubber bats were killing me, I could not stop laughing. The day for night shots were predictably painful to stare at.  Not a bad film but hardly a great one.  

Vampire Tango of Terror!!!