The Kiss of the Vampire was released by Scream Factory as a Collector’s Edition Blu-ray on July 14th 2020. The new sleeve design is by Mark Maddox; the original artwork will be on the reverse, of course.
The movie itself has received a new 2K scan of the interpositive in two aspect ratios (1.85:1 and 1.66:1). The television version (as Kiss of Evil) is also included in standard definition. Buy Amazon.com
Special features:
Audio commentary with film historians Steve Haberman and Constantine Nasr on 1.66:1 version (new)
Audio commentary with actors Edward De Souza and Jennifer Daniels, moderated by Peter Irving on 1.85:1 version
Kiss of Evil – TV version in 1.33:1 standard definition with optional audio commentary by film historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson
The Men Who Made Hammer: Composer James Bernard (new)
The Men Who Made Hammer: Production Designer Bernard Robinson (new)
Additional scenes added to the TV version
Theatrical trailer
TV spot
TV trailer
Meanwhile, here is our coverage of the film itself:
‘Shocking! – Horrifying! – Macabre!’
The Kiss of the Vampire is a 1962 British horror film directed by Don Sharp (Psychomania; Rasputin – The Mad Monk; Witchcraft; Curse of the Fly) and from a screenplay written by producer Anthony Hinds using his writing pseudonym John Elder. It is also known as Kiss of the Vampire and Kiss of Evil.
The Hammer Film Production stars Edward De Souza, Clifford Evans, Jennifer Daniel, Noel Willman and Barry Warren.
The soundtrack score was composed by Hammer regular James Bernard.
Originally intended to be the third movie in Hammer’s Dracula series (which began with Dracula in 1958 and was followed by The Brides of Dracula in 1960); this production was another attempt by Hammer to make a Dracula sequel without Christopher Lee.
The script by Anthony Hinds makes no reference to Dracula and expands further on the directions taken in Brides by portraying vampirism as a social disease afflicting those who choose a decadent lifestyle. The film went into production on 7th September 1962 at Bray Studios and was belatedly released in the UK on 11 September 1963 on a double-bill with Paranoiac.
Plot:
Bavaria, 1910. Gerald (Edward de Souza) and Marianne Harcourt (Jennifer Daniel), are a honeymooning couple who become caught up in a vampire cult led by Doctor Ravna (Noel Willman) and his two children Carl (Barry Warren) and Sabena (Jacquie Wallis).
The cult abducts Marianne, and contrive to make it appear that Harcourt was travelling alone and that his wife never existed. Harcourt gets help from hard-drinking savant Professor Zimmer (Clifford Evans), who lost his daughter to the cult and who finally destroys the vampires through an arcane ritual that releases a swarm of bats from Hell…
Reviews:
“Not as horrific as the title suggests, Kiss of the Vampire concentrates on the seductive, sensual side of vampirism, especially in a surrealistic masked-ball sequence.” All Movie
“Sharp’s ability to use his settings, including a beautifully photographed Bavarian wood, the sinister castle and a deserted inn, demonstrates his talent for mise-en-scène, the hallmark of his subsequent films, including Rasputin – The Mad Monk and The Face of Fu Manchu (both 1965).” The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror
“Kiss of the Vampire ends in the most lackluster way possible, a low for the studio. Our gruff vampire hunter conjures up a pack of bats to come flying to the rescue and it looks as cheap as special effects come. They bob through shattering stained glass windows and swoop down to feast on the flesh of the undead cult members, their white robes turning red with each new bite.” Anti-Film School
“The focus isn’t so much the hardly interesting married couple, but rather the two opposing figures of good and evil fighting on either side of the film – Noel Willman who plays the vampire with glacial stolidity but alas lacks any real charismatic presence and Clifford Evans who plays the vampire hunter with a brooding harshness. Kiss also comes filled with several other intriguing performances packed around the sides, most notably from Barry Warren as Ravna’s very weird son and Barbara Steele-lookalike Isobel Black as the innkeeper’s vampirized daughter who one wishes had been given more screen time.” The Black Box Club
“The ending (providing you can suspend disbelief and see past the rubber bats and string) is powerful stuff – predicting the finale of The Devil Rides Out (chalk circles, remote-controlled girls, “great winds”) and giving a spectacular end to the vampire and his disciples (something usually missing from such films).” British Horror Films
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“Kiss of the Vampire has a relatively tight script, one of the many penned by son-of-Hammer honcho Anthony Hinds, a typically effective score by James Bernard, quality performances, and both bathes in tradition and extends it. Those are all good reasons to seek this film out, but the best is that restrained but prolonged tension and ghostly ambience that Hammer did so well.” Classic Horror
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“As performed by the rather less fastidious Professor Zimmer, the ritual is thrilling stuff, whipping up a preternatural wind and sending an inky cloud of bats smashing through the windows of Ravna’s mountain stronghold. The bats, most of them purchased from branches of Woolworths in nearby Slough and Maidenhead, are not very convincing by modern standards but the scene is still a weirdly powerful one…” Jonathan Rigby, English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema
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“The only unfortunate part of the movie is that the ambitious ending is marred by less-than-convincing special effects, but I’m willing to forgive the movie this, if for no other reason that it works so strongly, sadly and beautifully up to that point.” Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings
” …Isobel Black’s venomous energy as a particularly zestful vampire recruit is splendid (though at times so much more energised than anything else it almost unbalances the film). The physical elements of vampirism are handled with a sharp wit and the use of landscape, notably the lush woodland setting around Black Park is particularly striking.” David Pirie, The New Heritage of Horror, I.B. Tauris, 2009
“The score is what you’d expect from a sixties horror film, and the direction is more than adequate, taking full advantage of the castle setting. It’s just too bad there wasn’t more graveyard and other assorted spooky footage to go along with slamming shutters and the nice establishing shot of the old dark castle. Not to mention the moody opening.” Oh, the Horror!
“Smartly paced, Kiss lays claim to some good performances (most notably from Evans as Professor Zimmer and Willman as Ravna) and gets kudos for its suspenseful restraint. The ‘bat attack’ ending is very weird, but thanks to a crafty buildup and clever editing, it’s actually an effectively unique climax.” The Terror Trap
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