The Kiss

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 :)

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.

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!

The Kiss (1988) - It's no wonder that Joanna Pacula was irritated at Meredith Salenger from almost start to finish in this movie.

She wasn't used to being the second-most attractive one in the room.

Ha ha... just kidding. They were equally attractive. But I can say without question that Joanna was the ugliest one in another way.

I'm talking evil personified.

This is a pretty intense horror story about curses, fatal kisses, endangered daughters and one of the dumbest dads in history.

In brief... Pacula plays Felice Dunbar, who as a child in the Belgian Congo is separated from her sister Hilary. She is victimized by an aunt who is into voodoo rituals involving a cursed talisman.

Auntie seals her niece's fate with a fatal and bloody kiss, killing herself and turning Felice into an undead kind of creature.

Many years alter, Felice, a successful (but still undead) model, tracks down her sister Hilary in New York. What she's really after is Hilary's daughter Amy (Meredith Salenger) and her husband Jack (Nicholas Kilbertus).

After Felice engineers the accidental (and gruesome) death of Hilary, she worms her way into Jack and Amy's life, with the intention of eventually planting a fatal kiss on Amy and sucking out her life essence.

Amy smells a rat almost from the get-go. But dad... hmmm...what an idiot. He falls for Felice hook, line, and sinker.

So who can save Amy? There are a few candidates, but Felice does a good job of eliminating them in voodoo-influenced and violent ways.

Pacula put in a performance worthy of Barbara Steele. That's a HIGH compliment, because no female actress (in my opinion) did evil better than Babs. Pacula's cold eyes, the snarl on her lips when she was angry with Amy, the devious passion with which she seduced brainless Jack, and the devilish delight when she was caressing the cursed talisman... just the perfect temptress.

Salenger was excellent as well. This kid has her wig on straight, and isn't afraid to face off with Felice - and her dad - in her valiant attempt to survive.

A very honorable mention should go to Mimi Kuzyk as Jack and Amy's neighbor Brenda. She is loving and caring and a fierce defender of Amy.

Finally? There's this black cat from hades that pops up from time to time and attacks people. It's so silly-looking... but I'd still feed it some Friskies.

"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.