The Kiss of the Vampire
| The Kiss of the Vampire | |
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original film poster
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| Directed by | Don Sharp |
| Produced by | Anthony Hinds |
| Written by | John Elder |
| Starring |
Edward de Souza Jennifer Daniel |
| Music by | James Bernard |
| Cinematography | Alan Hume |
| Edited by | James Needs |
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Production
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| Distributed by |
J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors (UK) Universal Pictures (USA) |
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Release date
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Running time
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88 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Kiss of the Vampire (also known as Kiss of Evil) is a 1963 British vampire film made by the film studio Hammer Film Productions. The film was directed by Don Sharp and was written by producer Anthony Hinds, credited under his writing pseudonym John Elder.
Gerald (Edward de Souza) and Marianne Harcourt (Jennifer Daniel), are a honeymooning couple in early 20th-century Bavaria who become caught up in a vampire cult led by Dr. 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 traveling 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.
Originally intended to be the third movie in Hammer's Dracula series (which began with 1958's Dracula with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, and was followed by 1960's The Brides of Dracula with Cushing alone), it was another attempt by Hammer to make a Dracula sequel without Christopher Lee. The final 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 7 September 1962 at Bray Studios.
This is the only credited feature film screen role of Jacquie Wallis, who plays Sabena.
The film's climax, involving black magic and swarms of bats, was originally intended to be the ending of The Brides of Dracula, but the star of that film, Peter Cushing, objected that Van Helsing would never resort to black sorcery. In fact, the paperback novelization of Brides does use this ending.
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