The Kiss of the Vampire Movie Review

The Kiss of the Vampire is a 1963 Hammer horror movie directed by Don Sharp and starring Clifford Evans, Noel Willman, Edward de Souza and Jennifer Daniel.

The film begins with someone being buried. A man stakes the body in the coffin. There is a vampire in there. Cut to a newly married couple,Gerald Harcourt(de Souza) and his wife, Marianne(Daniel).
Their car has broken down on the road. Gerald leaves to get petrol. Marianne is alone on the road. Someone is watching. Gerald returns and they go to the local hotel. The couple who run it are Bruno(Peter Madden) and his wife Anna(Vera Cook). Bruno is friendly, but Anna is very sullen. They go to their room and receive a letter from a local man called Dr. Ravna(Willman), who wants them to go to his house for dinner. They decide to go and they meet the man himself, along with his daughter Sabena(Jacquie Wallis) and his son, Carl(Barry Warren).

We see the body in the coffin from the beginning of the movie. It has come alive. It is a girl. She is a vampire. She is the daughter of the man who staked her. His name is Professor Zimmer(Evans) and she bites him. He runs home and he cauterises the wound before he gets infected. Gerald and Marianne wonder why Anna is so sad. They discover that she had a daughter. Sabena and Carl come to visit them at the hotel. They invite them to a party at Ravna's house. Zimmer sees this and he warns Marianne to be careful. At the party, something evil is afoot. Carl pretends to be Gerald and he leads Marianne upstairs. He locks her into a room. Ravner is in there. It is revealed that he is a bloodsucker and he bites her.

Sabena puts something into Gerald's drink and he passes out. The next morning, he looks for his wife, but they all deny that she was there. He is confused. They throw him out of the house. He doesn't know what is happening. Professor Zimmer finds him and helps him back to the hotel. Bruno pretends that he doesn't know who Marianne is. There is something weird going on. All of her clothes have gone. Gerald calls the local police, but they don't want to help him because of who Ravna is.
Zimmer believes him and he wants to help. He tells him about his daughter and he knows that Ravna was the one who made her into a vampire. He tells Gerald that they will get Marianne back. Gerald breaks into Ravna's house and he finds Annas daughter there. She tricks him and he is caught. He talks to Ravna who tells him that Marianne is his now. He almost gets bitten, but he escapes.

Zimmer shows up and they grab Marianne. They realise that Ravna is going to try and get her back. He calls her and she wanders back to the house. Zimmer performs a ceremony to destroy Ravner and his cronies. He traps them in the house and he does his thing. Bats come from nowhere and they attack all of the vampires, killing them. Marianne is safe and she returns to normal. End of story. This was a fun film. Hammer movies usually are. There was a lot to like about it. The story wasn't that original really, but the cast were good . The ending with the bats attacking everyone was hilarious, I thought, but that didn't take away from the film. It is an early Hammer offering and you can see that it was certainly inspired by Horror of Dracula. All in all, a decent vampire film with a funny ending. I recommend it. I will give it a 6/10.