El beso mortal

Well, I didn't go into this film expecting anything great; I was really just hoping for a decent timewaster along the same lines as Wes Craven made for TV opus 'Summer of Fear', and that's more or less what I got; though it cant be said that this film isn't as good as Craven's. The film is a mix of two very basic and very common horror themes; namely, the insider who works their way into a family unit, and of course the idea of witchcraft. After the first fifteen minutes, I feared the worst because = the way that the plot is set up is very messy; and that's never a good sign in a simple film like this one! However, it soon settles down and once I got an idea of what to expect, I found that the film became easier to enjoy. The film starts with two sisters in 1963 that get split up. One of them goes off with a relative who passes onto her a strange curse via a kiss. We then cut to twenty five years later, and the other sister has died in a car accident; leaving her husband and daughter behind. Then onto the scene comes the cursed sister, who wants her niece to bear her curse...

It has to be said that this film could have been better if have handled by someone more adept, and if it had a better focus. The plot soon becomes predictable, and there are several things about it that don't make sense, and the film often veers off on a tangent with certain things that aren't really relevant. The Kiss seems to have taken a bit of influence from The Omen with regards to the way that the death scenes are carried out; mostly excessive and random, but also quite imaginative: the death scene on an escalator is well done...though the clues preceding it spoil the surprise. None of the characters are particularly interesting, which is a shame considering that the main one is a conniving witch. However, the film never becomes too boring. The special effects aren't over-used, but what we do get is generally quite realistic; the only exception to this rule being an aggressive cat, which looks like a stuffed toy. It all boils down to an exciting and explosive finale, which also happens to be the best ten minutes of the film. Overall, I won't be going round recommending this film to people; but there's worse ways to spend ninety minutes of your life.

I used to watch this little-known Canadian b-horror movie on Frighnight Theater with Whitey Gleason. He said he enjoyed the film because its main special effects artist worked on "The Fly". In the film, a young teenager named Amy loses her mother to a tragic car crash. Her mother was on her way to visit Amy's aunt, who was a fashion model. Soon after the funeral, the aunt moves in with Amy's widowed father and, besides hooking up with the father and brainwashing him, begins using voodoo magic to kill off Amy's friends. She intends to isolate Amy so she can transfer a snake-like voodoo vampire creature out of her body into Amy's. Apparently the aunt and the snake thing will die if she has the creature in her too long. There is a great b-horror movie death scene at the end, complete with exploding propane tanks, wet fighting women, and a snake in the pool :)

It's 2013, and there's a distinct lack of originality in the horror field at present, what with all the remakes, reboots or re-imaginings.

The Kiss is by no means a classic of the genre but it is a fun way to kill 90 minutes and (shock! horror!) it's original. The ever wonderful Meredith Salenger here is pitch perfect in the lead. (Why she isn't working more is beyond me)

Joanna Pacula is also fabulous as the villainess of the piece. She's sexy, bitchy and suitably over the top. The film has its flaws; namely a god awful puppet kitty scare, but on the whole it has the sleek polish of any 80's studio horror flick. Tri-Star had quite a good track record with horror back then.

Sure it's cheesy but at least it's fun. The Kiss also has some genuine suspense and some good gory thrills here and there.

Big hair, big scares, big effects and big performances make this one stand out a little more than it deserves to. Welcome back to the 80's...

A solid six of out ten.

Amy (Meredith Salenger) finds her world turned upside down when her mother is killed in a freak accident. Soon her mother's estranged sister, fashion model Felice (Joanna Pacula), has moved in and begins working her way into the family, starting by seducing dad Jack (Nicholas Kilbertus). Naturally she has ulterior motives as she wants to pass on an ancient African curse via a slimy demon that must be passed from mouth-to-mouth. This Canadian chiller came out during a seemingly endless supply of evil demon women flicks (THE UNHOLY, NIGHT ANGEL, SPELLBINDER, THE GUARDIAN, SATAN'S PRINCESS) and does alright for what it is. You're not going to get a horror classic, but you do get bloody killings, a pulsating medical dummy, a drooling demon cat and Pacula performing rituals naked. The end is particularly over-the-top with the big showdown in the family's pool, complete with hedge trimmer stabbing and a barbecue propane tank flamethrower (only in the movies). Tri-Star barely released this in theaters in October 1988 in the United States, which is odd as they funded a special trailer for it that features a minute or so of "trailer only" footage.

After her mother dies in a terrible accident, pretty teenager Amy (the lovely Meredith Salenger) finally gets to meet her mysterious Aunt Felice (Joanna Pacula) but soon twigs that her mom's globe-trotting younger sister isn't as perfect as she makes out to be. Using the power of sex and voodoo, Felice controls the fates of Amy's loved ones, before attempting to pass on a very unusual 'heirloom' to her unwilling niece.

For a film about an ancient African parasite that is transmitted between female members of the same family by a kiss, this is quite the disappointment, a rather charmless movie with generic direction from Pen Densham, surprisingly poor effects by makeup wiz Chris Walas (Gremlins, The Fly), and flat performances from all except Pacula, who makes up for the other actors' seeming disinterest by really hamming it up.

Densham desperately tries to spice things up proceedings with a little gore and sex towards the end (Pacula going topless to seduce Amy's father), and randomly throws a hilariously naff zombie cat hand-puppet creature into the mix, but to no avail. This one could have done with a lot more gore and general outrageousness throughout in order to do the silly premise justice.

5.5 out of 10, rounded down to 5 for not going all the way with the 'necklace in the escalator' scene and for failing to get Salenger to take a shower (although, to be fair, she looks pretty great in that white swimsuit).