Bela Kiss: Prologue

I often find that even the lamest of horror movies have one or maybe even two redeeming features that make them just about bearable, whether that be a gratuitous shower scene, hot bimbo sex, a dwarf with a machine gun, mutant flesh-eating rodents, or simply some cheesy OTT gore, like someone's eyeballs randomly popping out of their sockets.

Natural Born Killer opts for both a sex scene and a shower scene, yet neither of these elements make this film any more entertaining, both somehow failing to provide any nudity. The remainder of the film is as equally dull and disappointing, as five bank robbers check in at a remote hotel to wait for the heat to die down, only to find that the staff are a bunch of weirdos in league with notorious serial killer Bela Kiss, who has apparently found a way to prolong his life.

Veering wildly in style from standard teen horror fare to torture porn to art-house horror, Natural Born Killer (AKA The Kiss of a Killer, AKA Bela Kiss: Prologue) is a complete and utter mess: boring from start to finish (very tame gore and absolutely no little guys brandishing extreme firepower), it is one of the few films that I have had to rewind at least five times at various stages because I kept falling asleep.

Not bad for a film, which invited such scathing opinions; "Kiss" is a tense film with 440 pounds of excess emotional baggage. The build up to mischief at Hotel Transylvania takes its sweet time in coming to play and terms with Nikolai's accent and horrendous dialogue delivery. The kills are subtle and effective, things go nuts and all woozy in the third act when one of the guests is administered a certain paralyzing agent through tea, a hot cup of tea. "Kiss" also goes the extra mile and explains to us that the immortality is the only trait the hotel management and staff share with vampires, that and the blood I assume, since there was loads of it in this slasher, haunted hotel flick. The rest are mere "fairy tales", says the butler to the victim,

With its enticing, "true story" history from 1914 to present-day and a jumbled, nonsensical plot, "Bela Kiss" entertains some with its 'no-show' kills, mediocre to laughable acting, the back-story. Vision of the Avengers fame as a serial killer, the home-coming of a twist, no-clue-title, and blood, gallons of blood, bath tubs full of blood.

Released on DVD in the UK as Natural Born Killer, aka The Kiss of a Killer. The silly plot involves five bank robbers, a hotel for adulterers, Hungarian serial killer Bela Kiss and immortality! Yeap, it's certainly a melting pot but sadly it is also a mess. Incredibly boring first hour, then the gore finally arrives but it doesn't exactly redeem this tedious crap. Avoid, or just hit the ffwd button on the remote.

Bela Kiss is theoretically based on a true story about a notorious serial killer whose crimes were discovered as WW1 was gearing up when the military attempted to confiscate barrels of gasoline and discovered mutilated bodies inside.

The soldiers that made the discovery are supposed to be so horrified that they immediately run off vomiting (apparently they weren't familiar with the horrors of trench warfare yet). Flash forward to the present and we have a van with five young people that just pulled a robbery and go to hide out in a no-tell motel for a while to avoid the cops. The place is elegant but very creepy, run by a crew of weirdos and filled with secret passages.

Once inside, we are told the not so interesting story of Bela Kiss, played Rudolf Martin, an actor perhaps best known for having played Dracula twice in both an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a TV movie called Prince of Darkness. Bela's back-story is dull, and perhaps in an attempt to make it seem more interesting, it is filmed in a visually lush, audacious style that reminded me of the film adaptation of Perfume A Love Story.

The move plods along bouncing from the uninteresting story of Bela Kiss to the uninteresting story of the young thieves, who pulled the robbery for some mysterious "boss" and are now turning on each other because of some soap opera style bickering between the leader and another guy over one of the girls (Kristina Klebe of Chillerama and Zombie's Halloween remake).

Basically, the only reasons I watched this movie were vague comparisons to Hostel and the presence of actress Kristina Klebe. Neither justified sitting through this dull, self serious mess. It's neither entertaining nor scary, there's a lot of blood but most violence occurs just barely off screen, and the plot contortions in the third act are just stupid.

Put simply, Bela Kiss is the prologue to a story that I have absolutely no interest in seeing completed.

Bela Kiss - Prologue is a very atmospheric low budget horror-thing from Germany. It is a strange movie, but worth a look. It's got great atmosphere, a bizarre story line, excellent editing and cinematography plus some decent horror and suspense. The serial killer Bela Kiss is very charismatic (Rudolf Martin fits great). At times I wondered exactly what kind of movie I was watching - it has a sort of art house feel to it in places, and at other times devolves to an all-out slasher. It's an odd style, but captivating for an hour and a half. The movies sums up the plot somewhat, but opens new doorways at the end. I'll probably watch the sequel, whenever it comes out. Looks like a decent story in the making.

6 points from me.