Kiss of the Damned (2013)

All I heard about this movie was how sexy and great it was. So sexy. So vampire-ry. Ooh.(Let the fake news sink in.)So I bought the Blu-ray.It was all hype. That's why this movie get's a 1 for a rating. A bad movie is a bad movie, but a movie that's 'all this and all that' which fails to live up gets an even lower rating than usual in my book. (A 3 would be generous.)No, this movie wasn't a Harlequin romance novel. Those are sexier. Far sexier than this movie are the 'Sleeping Beauty' novels of Anne Rice. That's how tame this movie is, BOOKS are sexier than it is. I have submitted edits to the 'parental guide' section, detailing the extent of the 'adultness' of this movie. Just about ANY T&A movie from the 80's has far more skin, in usually far sexier ways. "Ski School," "Bikini Carwash Company" and especially "Virgin Hunters" a.k.a. "Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000" come to mind, just to name three.There are 3 'lovemaking' scenes in this movie and only the smallest amount of actual nudity happens. I believe this was done to achieve an "R" rating, so the movie would seem sexy and therefore sell. Truthfully, this isn't team Edward or Jacob, but it isn't "Tarzan" (the one with Bo Derek) either. The irony is, there's as much male nudity as there is female. All without exposing the man's private parts, of course.Let's face it, the vampire-ry thing is getting old and lame as well. There are many plot holes in this movie regarding vampire-ism and how it's shown here. I'll name a few. 1. The heroine states in a narration (red flag of a lame movie) that a vampire can be harmed by sunlight. Yet her house is an older mansion, built to take advantage of the sunlight for lighting the building. Like the "Farmer Old McDonald" song. "Here a window, there a window, everywhere a window window." And she sleeps in a bed in this house. Uh, huh? 2. There is another vampire woman who has sex with a dude to get him into a vulnerable position to bite him. She bites the dickens out of his neck, then dribbles lots of blood (the whole point of the exercise?), then leaves his corpse sitting right out in the open to be found at the start of the next "Law & Order" episode. (Lenny didn't die, he's undead and he's gonna track down these female vampire killers.) I can see it now.This movie is fairly well done, but low budget and you can tell because the effects are kept to a minimum because the killings are so low. Most of the effects are simply physical ones literally done on camera. I saw ONE CG scene. The rest of the budget must have been spent on the "stars," Josephine and Roxane. Michael Rapaport and Riley Keough never were stars, and now you have proof with this movie. Oh, and I guess it counts for 'nudity' when we see a three-inch square of Riley's tummy due to her torn blouse. I can just hear Pat Robertson, "Give that naughty movie an 'R', because we can see Riley's tum-tum for a second!"So, if you were a girl who liked the "Twilight" series and are now grown up and want to spice up your late Friday night with your husband after you put the kids to bed, this movie is for you!For the rest of humanity, Try "Virgin Hunters." It even has an outdoor scene stolen directly from the "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" series.

The script is 100% predictable. No scares, no tension building. Pretty actresses and lead actor. Consistency is not a strong suit here either. At one point we are informed that they "heal almost instantly", at another we see them running and catching a doe but, when one crashes the car (a Mercedes. at no more than 40 mph. and the car topsides. in slow motion.) we see the poor character pass out, wake up still broken and bleeding and start LIMPING the remaining yards to the refuge, eventually collapsing as the sun rises. Yuck. You can't get more clichè than that in a vampire movie.... Some pretty ludicrous bloody scenes and sex scenes that qualify for Game of Thrones could bring this to be thought of as a B-movie. It's not. It is a cross between True Blood and Twilight. No fairy vampires that twinkle in sunlight, but the "veggie" vamps are there, synth blood and all. Beware.....

At a DVD rental store (they still have those?) Djuna and Paolo are instantly attracted to each other. They go to her place, and what a place it is, but she kicks him out, she suffers from a skin condition she tells him. But they can't resist each other. He comes back, they kiss through a chained door-very cool. She confesses that she's a vampire and everything that entails. He doesn't care. They become intimate, she turns him and introduces him to her world- a world of art-loving ancient vampires who live in hiding, who answer to a boss- the theater actress Xenia.Everything is going well; they make plans to travel to Italy, they hunt together in the woods for animals and drink synthetic blood, no vampire attacks humans. But then Djuna's sister Mimi shows up, and she's bad news- young, reckless, fun-loving, authority-challenging. She's on probation almost as Xenia is sending her to rehab to the West coast so she's only with the sister for a few days. Mimi likes all sorts of sex with humans, and she drinks their blood and kills them, she even seduces Paolo, and has plans for Xenia.Kiss of the Damned is exactly what I imagined and hoped it would be when I saw the original movie poster, not the one slapped on the DVD. It's a tribute to vampire movies from the past. It's very stylish but without replacing style for substance. It's settles on a 70s European horror movie style. It's erotic (plenty of sex but almost no nudity), has great music, and the story moves along more slowly. There are plenty of brilliant shots and camera angles. The closeness of Paolo and Djuna is well portrayed and you root for these two.There are some weaknesses too of course. The aforementioned lack of nudity is odd to say the least. It's unclear why they cast so many French actresses, who may be good actresses when they're speaking French but aren't such good actresses in heavy-accented English. The lead actress is particularly weak, she's somewhat attractive but not enough. However, Roxane Mesquida just steals the show, she's hot and cute and mischievous.Kiss of the Damned is an astonishing feature film debut for writer/director Alexandra Cassavetes. Horror needs more movies like Kiss of the Damned and less remakes and lost-footage junk.

"I would have done anything to be with you, however insane." Djuna (Baume) lives a lonely life. Only going out at night and mainly renting movies that she watches by herself. She has a huge beautiful house but the only person that visits is her housekeeper. One night at the video store she meets Paolo (Ventimigilia) but is afraid to talk to him. When he persists she reveals her secret to him. Djuna is a vampire. Both lives are changed forever. I have to admit that I am not a vampire movie fan at all, mainly because of the Twilight movies. This one has more of an Interview With A Vampire feel with the sexual aspect of True Blood. The movie had a very classy, almost operatic feel to it which really helped the movie. This is not a teen geared vampire movie, but it's also not Dracula either. If you are looking for something in the middle then this is for you. If you are a vampire movie fan you will enjoy this. I thought it was OK, but again I am not a big fan of this genre. Overall, if you liked Interview With A Vampire then you will most likely enjoy this one too. I give it a B-.