The Kiss

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).

Pucker up and get ready to die. Teenager Amy (Meredith Salenger) just lost her mom to a freak accident. Her long lost Aunt Felice shows up five months after the death to help out. At First Amy is excited to meet Felice (Joanna Pacula) because she is a fashion model and seems hip. Then things get weird when strange accidents happen. There is a great escalator scene when Amy's friend Heather gets hurt.Amy and her dad start to fight over Felice's presence. Doesn't help that Amy's dad is sleeping with Felice. Amy tries to tell her dad and her neighbor Brenda(Mimi Kuzyk)but no one believes her that Felice had anything to do with the strange accidents. They think Amy just misses her mom. But Amy knows Felice has a secret. This is a fun film! Has a lot of gory scenes and a great cast. Mimi Kuzyk is great as Brenda who tries to help Amy.Watch it late at night with popcorn! It is sort of a supernatural reverse version of the Stepfather. I liked the soundtrack. It set the mood. death scenes are great. watch out for the worst puppet cat to ever grace the movies!

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.

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 :)

"The Kiss" is actually just a rudimentary & simplistic witchcraft story about supernatural powers getting passed through the female members of the same bloodline, but director Densham neatly polishes up the concept with impressively explicit make-up effects (courtesy of Chris Walas' company), adequate supportive character drawings and atmospheric building up towards the death scenes. The story opens in the early 60's in the Belgian Congo, where two sisters become separated at the train station. The youngest one, Felice, is seriously ill but her aunt miraculously cures her by passing an alien-like creature into her body through a kiss. 25 years later the other sister tragically dies in a car accident, leaving behind a husband and a stunningly beautiful adolescent daughter named Amy. Aunt Felice shows up again (in the ravishingly matured version of Joanna Pacula) and quickly works her way into the family by seducing her widowed brother-in-law. Auntie Felice is clearly just interested in Amy's body as the host for the inheritable creature, and she won't hesitate to use violent voodoo tricks against anyone that stands between her and the young girl. "The Kiss" is one modest class above the majority of 80's witchcraft-movies, because it features a little more directorial flair and style. There's a continuously pleasing level of suspense and film is suitably gruesome, including images of people burning alive, losing body parts underneath trucks and getting strangled on escalators. Felice has an OTT grotesque wild cat assisting her to kill people and there's a bizarre (but macabre) montage showing Amy menstruating in class whilst her father makes love to the sinister aunt. That was quite an awkward moment, and I'm not entirely sure about the symbolic significance/importance of that sequence. In fact, there's quite a lot of sexual innuendo that appears to be a bit lost in the wholesome of the story. Anyway, the story grows increasingly sillier near the end, resulting in a highly implausible and chuckles-inducing finale. Meredith Salenger was truly adorable girl in the late 80's (and still a gorgeous woman today) and I severely regret the fact her career didn't skyrocketed after this film. Recommended to watch at least once, particularly if you appreciate feminine beauty and graphic gore.