The Kiss of a Vampire review (2025)
By all reasonable measures, The Kiss of a Vampire is an embarrassingly bad movie.
Production values are shaky, performances are spotty and the script meanders — all the qualities that check the boxes for a worst movie of the year contender. Despite this myriad of flaws, there’s a weird charm with The Kiss of a Vampire.
It’s almost like director/screenwriter Richard Douglas Jensen was aiming at creating a modern campy horror classic and doesn’t care how goofy the film is so long as it’s fun for viewers willing to give it a shot. Those viewers are definitely asked to lean in to Kiss of a Vampire’s silliness instead of treating it like a serious vampire movie like Nosferatu. (Check out Nosferatu on 4K on Amazon).
The film opens with Carol (Saporah Bonnette) marrying Wessex (Philip Hulford). Carol is oblivious to the clearly rattled priest who notably does not throw holy water on Wessex. Jensen isn’t subtle about Wessex’s identity, which is the right move since Kiss of a Vampire isn’t the kind of film that can deliver on a delayed payoff.
Carol is not a demanding bride as Wessex takes her to a rundown shack in a small Appalachian town with a population of just 100 people. That number drops by a few dozen as the film plays out. Bonnette isn’t a dynamic performer and has a flat line delivery — hardly ideal for the main character — but fitting for a movie that isn’t exactly submitting best acting performance nominations for the Academy Awards.
To spice things up a bit beyond her dull strolls through town, Carol starts having visions and hallucinations. She’s not sure of what she sees attributing them to being bipolar and schizophrenic — hardly making Kiss of a Vampire a champion of mental health since the kinds of visions she’s seeing are hardly the side effects of her medication. Provided she’s not allergic to it…
Seeking some spiritual advice, Carol turns to Father Mauricio (Michael V. Jordan) for guidance. Mauricio seems a little too handsy for a priest and seems to want a deeper connection with the married woman.
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Eventually Carol starts to realize her charming husband is not all she envisioned especially as the body count starts to rise. Carol actually spots Wessex fang up as he claims another victim. Typically, this would be grounds for seeking a divorce, but Carol decides to stick it out while she gets some greater understanding of what Wessex is doing.
This opens the door for the vampire slayer, Hera (Emma Hayley Jensen), to explain she’s in town to slay Wessex on the next full moon. Since she’s got time to kill as well as vampires, Hera spends her nights hooking up with some of the prostitutes at the local brothel. Yes, even in a town of 100 people business is booming at the brothel. Hera was a nun who was part of a vampire-slaying organization who kicked her out due to her liaisons with fellow nuns.
Undeterred, Hera seeks assistance from fellow excommunicated slayer Petrov (Jensen doing triple duty). Petrov is still haunted by his past involving a vampire and his wife. Ironically, Jensen is a better performer than writer and director.
Jensen utilizes overly melodramatic music and unnecessary slow-motion mixed with disorienting camera angles that make the action sequences the least engaging aspect of the film.
The Kiss of a Vampire is streaming on Tubi, which feels like an appropriate home for it. Maybe there it can live on in some sort of campy infamy. For more discerning vampire love stories, it’s probably best to revisit Twilight, which has an excuse for its melodramatic romance plot.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Photo Credit: Poverty Row Pictures
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