KissoftheVampire

Kiss of the Vampire (aka. Immortally Yours) (2009)

So there is a vampire named Alex who falls madly in love with a human woman named Estelle. Alex is already weary of his immortal existence, which is just reinforced by his feelings for Estelle. Lucky for him Estelle is the daughter of a brilliant scientist who is involved in the study of immortal life. He is able to figure out how to cure Alex, but his boss is actually the leader of the Illuminati. The Illuminati control the whole world and want to live forever. But a deal is struck to cure Alex while making the leaders of the Illuminati vampires. Being bad guys the Illuminati try and double cross them, but Alex has already double-crossed them. Toss in a useless plot line involving some local cops tracking Alex’s old gang of vampires with the help of Interpol’s vampire hunter and you have the mess that is called Kiss of the Vampire.

Going into this movie I really wanted to like it. I mean it has a couple of genre actors that I’m a fan of in Martin Kove (Death Race 2000) and Phil Fondacaro (Troll, Ghoulies II). But even their presence couldn’t save this movie for me. The movie isn’t terrible, but it lacks any personality and is very bland. There are also way too many characters in the movie and because of this gets way too confusing. Not only that but many of the characters are introduced with little background and end up feeling awkward and uninspired. The script seems to be in love the idea of vampires, but doesn’t know what to do with them. This is about what you would expect from a first time writer, in this case Katherine Hawkes who is also the lead actress. I would suggest after seeing what a mess the story is that she might want to stick to acting, but then I realized she might be a better writer than actress. That is my snarky way to getting onto talking about the performances of the cast. The leads Hawkes and Daniel Goddard as Alex are just awful. They have no onscreen chemistry, which kills any chance the poorly written love story had. All they really do is stand around, Goddard brooding and Hawkes looking smitten. Even the normally reliable Fondacaro can do little with the role that is written for him, though he tries.

Technically this is about what I expected. The camera work is nicely done and the lighting is decent. But there is some terrible CGI used, not only for the god-awful dissolves as the vampires escape, but also for the muzzle flashes of the guns. The worst CGI effect is saved for the last as Alex has his final revenge on the Illuminati. The action sequences consist of the vampires standing around and letting themselves be shot, and then staked. If you are attacked by someone with a gun and you are immune to bullets wouldn’t you still kick their ass?

This is far from the worst vampire movie I’ve seen (hey at least Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt are nowhere to be seen!) but I still can’t recommend it. I would imagine even the most diehard vampire movie fanatic would find this one a waste of time. For more information about this movie go to the MTI website at www.mtivideo.com/

1 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer