I can’t say I am big fan of vampire movies. Do I really have to explain myself? You can only approach a vampire story in so many ways, right? With how vampires are made to be ‘overly dramatic beings’ nowadays, its pretty safe to say I am not intrigued enough to want to watch another bloodsucker flick. Out of all the vampire horror films I have watched, I can definitely say my go to favorite is 30 Days of Night. I relished the sinister take on night creatures rather than the floppy hair and goatee man. Regardless of my skepticism, the trailer for Kiss of the Damned seemed exciting to me. Due to the lack of buzz that the film had after SXSW this year, I had to skip it over to catch Cheap Thrills which was a blast. While I don’t regret my decisions, I will say after watching Kiss of the Damned on my laptop, I wish I had caught it in the cinema so I could enjoy all the sleazy sexiness of the retro romance spectacle.
While writing a new storyline in a small town of Connecticut, Paolo (Milo Ventimiglia) gets infatuated with Djuna (Joséphine de La Baume) just after one night. She acts all tough, but eventually reveals herself to be a vampire. Paolo then makes the decision, as I imagine many of us would, that he is in love with Djuna so much, he wants her to turn him into a vampire so they can be together forever. Paolo and Djuna have an arrangement where they can survive without human blood. They live in a sunless house, and everything is going great. Until, that is, Djuna’s sister Mimi (Roxane Mesquida) comes to visit, who has a stronger tendency to embrace her more animalistic nature. Things like sex, death, all the fun stuff. As Paolo and Djuna’s relationship develop, and they interact with the other vampires, having Mimi around constantly annoys Djuna because of how she can’t be as elegant and mysterious as everyone else, but there is something about Mimi’s animalistic side that sparks Paolo’s interest. When Paolo makes plans with Djuna to leave the country, all three characters are forced to deal with their desires and figure out what is it that they truly want.
Everyone wishes to attempt creating a monster that has never been created before but Kiss of the Damned chose to show us why people have loved these monsters in the first place. When the characters evolved into their more vampiric form, there wasn’t any profane, demon like transformation, they simply gained fangs. Paolo does not involuntarily turn into a vampire, and there isn’t an embarrassing “What’s happening to me?!” compilation. Djuna provides a very detailed forewarning of what Paolo is in for and trust me the moment you set your eyes on Joséphine de La Baume in this movie, you’ll desperately want her to transform you into a vampire. These monsters did not have the ambition to conquer the world, in fact, they were attempting to blend in with the society and suppress their need for blood so they could coexist with the modern world. There was no final goal of conquering anything, these were creatures of raw emotions who were trying to reign in their passions just enough to avoid drawing anyone’s attention.
Without contemporary references in the film, one can easily get caught up in the aesthetic feel of the music, suggesting that the film possess a timeless quality, similarly, one could view the movie as a stylized version of a Hammer released vampire film set in the 70s. While this truly is a vampire film, one is only able to relate up to a certain extent, yet in this case the focus is on how much Paolo and Djuna are in love. Instead, the film can be viewed as a love story in which vampires sporadically make an appearance instead of a use vampire characteristics as the inspiration behind the film. I am still not able to best relate to the film as it is still a vampire movie, but if you’re looking for a film with a captivating atmosphere revolving around sexy vampires, then Kiss of the Damned is the right choice.
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