Kiss of the Damned (R) movie review
Assuming you’ve seen the preview, only the red text is considered “spoilery” (it won’t ruin the movie, per se as there's not much to ruin, but it does tell you things in advance) because the preview/reviews cover some things that I would otherwise consider spoilers.
Directed (and written) by Xan Cassavetes
Characters:
Djuma (Josephine De La Baume)
Mimi (Roxane Mesquida)
Paolo (Milo Ventimiglia)
Not worth seeing. I hate to say that about a small budget film, but the director also wrote it so…I think that’s where it went wrong. Supposedly the movie is set in the 70’s…I couldn’t tell - the only giveaways are the hair and costumes which look too modern and arty. They end up looking weird as opposed to dated. I dunno, maybe the writer/director was going for “timeless” but…it looked like she tried to combine Star Wars with a bunch of artistics from L.A. Point is, I had to look for the era and the costumes/hair were weird until I remembered/placed the era. I clued in at about 3/4ths of the way in when I saw some strange hair and Xendra’s robe that made me laugh - I could not figure out what it was supposed to be besides a joke. Paolo’s character oozed 2012 in his wardrobe or…lack thereof. I think he only had one shirt. I couldn’t tell where the movie was set locational-wise, either, which bothered me a lot because it had a little of everything. A little too much of everything, too convenient.
This movie is flat. I noted when I saw the previews that there was no plot and there isn’t. It’s very, very, very arty. I think it might be trying to convey a visual sensation, an experience while throwing in some people/characters for a reference point. For as much of an ‘animal’ feel as the movie had, the mention of “monsters”…going to high-class parties, premieres and moving to Europe, well, one of these things, again, just doesn’t belong. But it’s not that ‘sensational.’ There were signs of horrid editing, stuff that…should have been more, things that had little/nothing to do with anything and thus didn't need to be there, bad transitions, too weird, making me ask strange, distracting questions constantly… As it was, the scenes were edited very short, unfinished, almost like clips. It got to be annoying it was so bad. It wasn’t the type of ‘cut away’ shot that works for some horror movies, either, because this film is trying to be five different categories at once: horror, drama, sci-fi, romance, indie, documentary/narrative (maybe more).
The dialogue is flat and pointless. I mean really pointless. Whole “scenes” consisting of two characters each saying a line or two as a conversation (most of it said as a voice-over!). I quote this from the film: (Between Paolo and Djuma) “You like hunting.” “I like a lot of things. But I don’t need that [hunting?]” “Me neither.” And later (between Mimi and Djuma): “Did it turn you on?” “(questioning, shocked/denial)What?” “(sassily)…Whut?” between the two ‘sisters.’ One is desperate to play normal house mom, the other is clearly the delinquent, attention/thrill-seeking child. It stank so badly of high school drama, it made Twilight look mature. (I say ‘sisters’ because they don’t look alike and I thought it might be a metaphor of vampire slang, like ‘we were bitten by the same person, so we’re sisters, like blood-brothers.’ That wasn’t the case which I kind of regret. One sister looks Eurpoean to a 'T', the other looks like a girl next door, trying to seduce her friend's dad in a porn movie, then we have Milo/Paolo who just...doesn't fit the movie at all, then we have the maid and Xendra who look like a different kind of European, then we have the quickie victims who all look young, American and modern - so the casting wasn't great, either. The theme was inconsistent and didn't pay off and I've seen it pay off before, like with the Blade movies, where the casting was purposefully offset to show that vampirism wasn't selective with race/location/looks. With Kiss, I couldn't tell where everyone was from to date/place them). Another scene between Paolo and Mimi, the dialogue was painfully bad and immature. The scene made so little sense: Paolo chopping up/draining? Eating? a possum. Okay, it is dead or alive (seeing how it's, y'know, a possum)? Mimi: “You know you don’t have to do that. That possum as already dead. Everyone knows animals don’t come back.” Paolo: “She’s scared, this makes her feel better, it’s fine by me.” Wha- huh? Then he buries it! Why? The dialogue of the human couple was also immature and laughable. The party interactions are blatantly fake and posed. Is it weird that one sister is named Mimi, a more Americanized name, dare I say it, or English/French if you want to get specific, while the other is named DJUMA? I was admittedly looking at the clock to see how the movie would end literally in the last 20 minutes.
I’m sorry, I know casting two European women with thick accents is authentic, but they are difficult to understand and when these two actresses/characters interact it’s just…wow, it was so bad. Very distracting, overacted or underacted, wrong inflections, passionless and not in an ‘I’m so sick of my life, living forever, living this way’ that might make sense. Djuma and Mimi came across as purposefully fake and laughable because they can't emote. Every actor has something going on with their voice except for Milo Ventimiglia’s character, who is American (or close to it). No, I take that back, there was two other male actors, one female actor who were understandable, without accents. They were not the stars or big players, of course. It really made Paolo (Milo’s character) stand out, not in a good way - he was ostracized and he did not fit in. I don’t have a problem with accents, like I said, I think it was kind of authentic (it just didn’t pay off because of the director’s direction or the actresses’ lack of talent, I don’t know. It was better than a Transylvanian accent, I guess). There was one gay vampire with a lisp and I wanted to pimp slap him for being annoying. Xendra was just plain scary (as an actress playing a very weird character as far as facial expression goes) - she sounded like she'd had a tracheotomy from smoking and had to be resuscitated as a vampire. She was not a sexy, mature, artsy woman (which would have been cool), she looked and sounded old and worn. I wanted her to be cool. I have a problem when a movie is…slanted. I can’t say the choice didn’t make sense, it did.
I don’t think you can paint “animals” as high-class bourgeois who are interested and educated in politics. Maybe I missed the point of the movie and that was the point: animals at night, burying things in the yard, functioning members of society with a point of a view, human(ish) rights and ideas. The main conflict seemed oh-so-loosely centered around that struggle of conforming to a society or following one’s base, destructive instincts as a biological programming. (I’ve been reading way too much abnormal psych and criminology theory and it’s showing!) I think that’s a great argument but without a plot, it doesn’t carry. I didn’t care because there were no characters, the conflicts were almost ridiculous and the relationships were beyond phoned in. The whole story feels like it didn't go very far or travel at all. The people who are supposed to get an ending don't, and the person who gets an ending is the one we're not...supposed to like...? I think? I believed more in Xendra and Mimi’s relationship (friends/mentor-student) than I did in Paolo/Djuma (lovers) or Djuma/Mimi (supposedly sisters). Owch. I read a review that said, paraphrased, “Paolo and Djuma are played straight and Mimi is the only interesting thing in the movie.” Mimi’s not *that* unexpected but she is the highlight. And sadly, she is the plot, too.
To continue about the point of the movie, though: There was mention or hint that vampirism was a sort of addiction (makes sense). I thought that was clever, interesting, socially relevant. That’s what sold Mimi’s character to me. She was the “addict” who was trying to convince everyone she was clean when the audience knows she isn’t. Then you have this dilemma of ‘what do we do about it? Can we trust her? Does she want to get better?’ That…was…the plot, as near as I could tell, with very few, underplayed twists. I couldn't tell if Mimi was supposed to be as immature as she came across as sometimes (not all the time, the other times she was scheming).
More about the characters: Djuma (I literally thought her name was “Trina” until I remembered it was some strange African sounding name because Xendra alone consistently said it more correctly than everyone else including American Milo). I wound up feeling sorry for her. She kinda gets screwed over. Her situation did not make me anxious like it should have because I didn’t take it seriously. She wasn’t passive but she wasn’t really active. She whined and complained mostly in strangely melodramatic ways. Maybe it’s a European thing (I want to label her as Russian for some reason) but she did not seem like a happy person and I felt that if I was to like any of the limited things I was shown, I should like her or she should be happy about getting something she wanted (a guy, Paolo). Like Bella, she’s…bland and I don’t see why such an idealist, artistic guy like Paolo would like her. She cries a lot but…I thought she was overly sensitive or overly traumatized but I understand that because of the context, not because she the character/actress sells it in any way. It’s overdone, too, her mascara is running and the wet streaks under her eyes to show us how sad she is because we don’t see the tears fall, the shot just cuts to her with that visual. Kinda weird, you want to cut *out* the emotional build up on purpose? She, like everyone else (but it’s worse for her), gets over things quickly and ignores things I thought were important. I don’t know if it was the director or the actress, but she didn’t do much for me as an actress. But I am biased - I like actors faces that can/do move and emote without setting and context. That’s my albeit narrower definition of ‘acting’ because I have a big blind spot in reading the emotions of an unmoving, blank face. I will say that I liked her body-type - large, natural breasts and a larger behind - it was unique and real. (Getting suspicious that Milo has a type - redheads). There was a lot of talking on the phone in this movie. The maid literally took the house phone out of her purse when she arrived (?) Then the maid took calls for Djuma, like a vampire sleeps during the day and can’t answer it herself? One phone scene made me laugh aloud at how bad the delivery was. Oh, and the movie strongly hints that Djuma can…see the future/past or has weird dreams or she has some telepathic/empathic connection with her sister in the way they edited. Not explained, just…weird. Her fear of Mimi in one scene wasn’t explained because they're both supposedly heal-able, immortal vampires, right? One scene with Djuma and Mimi was so off just in the dynamic - laughable, bothersome and strange, the continued use of props while spying on a little girl in a dress rolling around in the grass...Not creepy at all.
Paolo. An absolute flake. Anyone who thought Peter Petrelli’s character was a cardboard cut-out needs to see this. This guy has no motivation. Paolo’s agent, who is drunk, high and sick at the time, explains his character best. That was his most endearing scene, being described by this strange boss of his. Paolo did nothing wrong throughout (except for one thing that I won’t spoil. It’s a biggie, but the movie glosses over it which is…okay because it works out as ‘tit-for-tat’ but still…I don’t think his sin should be overlooked but when you’re immortal maybe things change, I dunno. It lacked explanation/motive on his part). I see why Milo liked this movie (aside from the fact that I’m starting to think he’s using his acting career to boost his self-esteem or live out his sexual fetishes or pick up his co-stars or prove something to people - it seemed a lot like a giant Milo commercial, a giant Milo insert even though Milo would do things differently than Paolo did) - everyone in it is some kind of artist or vagabond. Writers, actresses, agents, every woman in the movie is asked “are you an actress? No? You should be!” Like…okay, demeaning them much? I guess when you’re a vampire it’s not that flattering but these women don’t seem interested in flattery or able to be flattered by anything. I don’t know if that’s…in keeping with being a vampire or their European background or if they’re just emotionally dead, been-there-done-that. I don’t even know what that repetition/focus is supposed to represent, ‘The [Greek] gods envy mortals because they are mortal [and their lives are short]?’ Great quote but these are hardly kick-ass, enviable, believable vampires.
Paolo and Djuma/Trina: I do have to bring this up. They represent the colloquial Edward/Bella from Twilight, except Djuma, the woman, is the vampire and Paolo, the human man, is the one who wants to be turned. I like that! Totally different, right? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen (at least, I’ve never seen a memorable, good representation) woman/vampire and male/human. It’s fresh, it’s smart…It’s totally wasted. There is zero motive, background, explanation, dynamic, relationship, tension, drama…the list goes on. They stare at each other (a Twilight feature), they meet, she explains she’s a vampire, they have sex, she turns him. Literally. It’s as bad as Twilight in that sense that I have to ask “Why are you doing this? How can you say you love her? She’s kind of bland, you barely know her; you haven’t thought this through.” The viewer as a hopefully rational being is forced to ask, “What is your DEAL with liking people who drink animal blood? You want to kiss that person knowing/seeing that?” And she, Djuma, as the responsible party (in more than one way), goes along with it eventually. Maybe she succumbed to temptation but…boy, I didn’t get that impression clearly. The way they rationalize their love as an eventuality, as an absolute is foundless and funny. 20 minutes of (badly done) set-up for this relationship, that’s it. And as you’d expect, the rest of the relationship is textbook Twilight fantasy. Everything is perfect, convenient and unexplained - I might be able to live with that if they’d given the scenes more substance. More on this a little later. Points for making the (Twilight) love triangle female-male-female instead of male-female-male. It’s fairly subtle, underplayed in my opinion but interesting. It differs from Twilight because the, uh, person in the middle is used for a purpose, not desired by the other member of the triangle (you know, since Jacob loved Bella as did Edward; Jacob wasn’t using Bella to make a point to Edward). Paolo is strangely the one getting the sexist treatment, being the only real male character, just in the way the women talk about him as a thing even after he’s a vampire.
The actors struggled to play their roles. The characters are talked about, referenced (often in near fourth-wall breakage/author/actor-insert ways) more than they show anything or give history, which I find I even care to know. The only one who actively does anything (of interest) is Mimi. As game_byrd mentioned, the maid was wonderful, she had an ARC! I didn't mention her at first because she wasn't technically a main player of any kind. One of her scenes had my mouth hanging open in gleeful horror. I guess she was the sole "twist" in the movie. Yeah, didn't see that coming - the maid did it!
The preview and the actors in interviews really talked up the sex, “It’s carnal, erotic, adult themes” and “arousal; sex.” It wasn’t as moving as I thought it would/should be (especially if vampires have “heightened senses”). There’s not as much sex as I expected there to be, either. One scene was downright passionless. One was overacted to death (no pun intended). Two didn’t make sense. Make that three didn’t make sense - the threesome was laughable (and it’s not the threesome I’d have liked to see). Yeah, there's only about four sex scenes. The first sex scene (Djuma/Paolo) was actually bothersome, I don’t want to give too much away, but it was a classic case of no-motive: “Why do you feel safe? What about that turns you on? Why are you doing that?” which really killed the action. Not to mention the over-the-top writhing of the purposefully “dressed” lingerie shots. She dresses up in lingerie, chains herself to the bed to prove to him she’s a vampire. Um, what? What was the point there (if you’re not going to have sex)? It’s not arousing, it’s barely sexy - she’s not trying to escape and she’s not that distressed, so why struggle? Congrats, your boobs are natural and they do, in fact, jiggle. And which of you, if anyone, is turned on in that situation becuase I can't tell. One quickie male victim wears a condom…I think. It happened so quickly I couldn’t tell for sure (he’s the last person you’d expect to have a freaking condom, too). I know movies like to play with fantasy, that’s their purpose. So I might be nitpicking but since they kind of brought it up, I couldn’t help but want to ask, “You told us upfront all the things vampires can and can’t do, but can they get pregnant? One vampire mentions humans needing to get tested after sleeping with her so…?” No other scenes feature protection/the pill, not even in the (barely) more committed relationship supposedly involving love and ‘playing house.’ Normal/other movies don’t make mention of protection/the pill which is why I say I might be nitpicking. For ‘mature, realistic, artsy, dated-slash-timeless’ it does an okay job of portraying vampire persons, sexually, in a normal world. It's not flashy or overly sexy in context with vampires. I don’t get a sense of consequences being important or factored in to anything so everything is surreal, perfect, fantasyland, Twilight-y…I was expecting the sex to be more. Just “more.” I’ve seen Brad Pitt and a blonde Tom Cruise (in Interview with a Vampire) be more sensual and vampiric than this and it wasn’t a quarter as explicit as Kiss. And I don’t find Pitt or Cruise anywhere near as sexy as I find Milo (they’re certainly harder to see past as vampires, too). With that much freedom, you kind of expect more, but the sex is really rather…normal. I don’t know if that’s a statement or not. The nudity is a few nipple shots and barely a shot of a guy’s backside (not Milo’s, he’s only ever shirtless). Paolo seems to get more out of sex than any of the women, even though as vampires their senses are heightened - he’s louder and visibly orgasms while the women take it in stride (maybe because he’s new and they’ve been around/been vampires longer?). While it’s really nice, refreshing even, to see a guy so into it (I cheer, I appreciate that stuff), not pulling the stoic act, the women kind of downplay it, intentionally or not, I don’t know. I suppose 'short and intense' is a style but it's not...realistic which is kind of the theme of the movie. Paolo's no porn star for stamina but these women barely pant, their reactions are overblown for all of the five minutes it takes Paolo to orgasm, then...nothing. So these women can ignore 4x the nerve endings down there, hyper-sensitive vampire or not? One of the love scenes ended so weird it was off-putting, again, because it raised way too many odd, out-of-place questions. It was so 'just because we can' with some elements.
Since they (the characters) did a pretty basic, bland, in-your-face explanation of ‘how vampirism works (so you don’t get it confused with that Twlight BS) using a voice-over’, they sure don’t explain the…relevance of ‘a virgin’s blood’ even using the word ‘sacrifice.’ Um…okay. And how did we know she was a virgin? By smelling her? Okay, a half a point for making the ‘virgin sacrifice’ scene woman/woman and non-erotic. They don’t explain how people turn into vampires once bitten which is really bad considering the fact that they SHOW Paolo undergoing the transition in…voiced-over, clip “scenes.” I liked the effects sunlight had, more realistic than any other vampire movie I’ve seen. There was little differentiation or importance placed on animal versus human versus synthetic blood…even when it was explicitly mentioned. And the whole ‘healing almost immediately’ thing doesn’t work…But their bite marks disappeared. The overall explanation was laughable, I felt bad for the actors (Milo) who had to deal with that with a straight face. It was so pointed to get across: “here’s how we’re different that Twilight.” I don’t know that I can rightly say if it really stood apart from Twilight except that it was a heck of a lot more realistic in a worldly sense/setting, no vampire super-powers, sparkling and power-crazed councils. (I half expected them to make a comment about sparkling, seriously). Kiss of the Damned was cheesy in dialogue, plot and visuals. It definitely tried to give us a more classic, earthy, mature vampire story. But when details like money/jobs/houses/maids and background come into play with the character’s lack of character…it comes across as immature and fantasyland, playing house, every little girl’s dream. So it’s no more mature than Twilight in that way. And you can’t ignore it because it’s in your face. All the time. You know it when everything is a plot device that isn't working. Maybe it begs the question ‘why do you want to be normal?’ or in Mimi’s case, ‘what do you have against being normal?’ I liked that Mimi seemed…genuinely jealous, which made her the much more believable sister. Djuma was clueless and (apparently) happy, “[bland voice] I loff heem.” Djuma was extremely tame for a vampire, not threatening at all so vampirism was hard to get into when she was our intro character. Maybe she’s the ‘good sister’ but sheesh. The movie didn’t have a point of view/narrative or a main character and it suffered because of that.
The music. Oh, my goodness. It’s a cool song at first. Watch the preview, it’s in there. The director/writer even makes a point of it by having Paolo say, in a judgmental tone at first, “What is she [Mimi] listening to? I kinda like it.” Really? We can’t really tell it’s suddenly part of the characters’ environment when you PLAY IT IN THE BACKGROUND ALL THE TIME. Now picture it for 4/5 of a 1.5 hour movie. Bound to get annoying and old really fast, right? Which is a shame, because the movie starts out with this cool throbbing tone, like blood pounding through your veins, in your ears, right? I thought, cool! I like that, setting the tone and stuff. Yeah, barely used that for one clip of “scene.” The rest of the “music” was annoying….sounds, for lack of a better word, which are also heard in the preview, like a super-annoying wind-chime/chime thing. I kept thinking the percussion was someone banging on a metal trash can lid... Not a very flattering image. And the rest was this annoying hum/static that I swear I've heard in other movies. (Notice how often I used the word "annoy" in all its tenses). The sound faded in and out almost without rhyme or reason.
The visuals. The preview isn’t really edited from the movie, either. So what you see if what you get - that disappointed me. The opening with Djuma sets us up for an inconsistent, unexplained character that isn't given a proper conclusion. There were some cool shots that were just very visually representative, mostly during the beginning and a few at the end, but it was so outweighed by the rest of the useless nature crap. There was one shot that was so gothic it had me eager, going, "yeah!" but it wasn't carried further. That's pretty much all I remember, the beginning and the end because nothing happened in the middle. I was editing the movie as I watched, trying to predict which scenes would be useless before they finished. The movie is listed as horror. Um…why? Nothing happens. It’s got blood, fairly realistic blood (for the most part, not consistently. Some of the biting effects don’t match up if you look closely and the bite effects made me stare to try and figure them out, drawing me eye in ways it shouldn’t). But it’s shot like a suspenseful horror movie, lots of shots of driving in the dark, running through the woods, watching an (extremely creepy…?) bush move (REPEATEDLY) in the dark, the moon/sunrise and birds and a lake…strategically placed deer…(just what?). I felt like I knew that damn bush (not a metaphorical female “bush”) better than I knew the story and characters by the end of it. No cool hunting or eating, barely any vampire-y shots of anything! Nothing jumps out at you. The big ‘reveals’ are purposefully softened and over-explained. There was one bit that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up but it was literally a 5 second shot. At the end. Maybe the movie is too focused on it’s realism (which I do appreciate, truly) that it misses that needed area of otherworldliness…? Again, something just doesn’t fit and I’m not sure which part/half it was. The movie kind of needs to pick a direction and stick with it. So much potential…kind of wasted.
There's two types of 'art.' One: look pretty. Two: say something. I can accept either or both at once. This did neither, which is why I'm so harsh on the 'artiness' here. My definition of 'indie' would probably offend people, so let's just say I don't like it or find it entertaining except to mock it. If this is 'indie', then I still didn't like it for any reason. I get the feeling this movie is the equivelant of Stephanie Meyers' Twilight fantasy - this writer/director has a fantasy to be an actress, writer, director, vampire and...traveler so each character represents something of her fantasy. That viewpoint/idea was so distracting and cliche. I don't know who this director is, but I would not see anything else she does.
Maybe I expected too much (the premise was so fresh and I've been wanting to see this since I heard about it ages ago) or maybe I just don't like arty movies (I don't; I tried to give this one positives/credit where it was due because I criticize critics who are pure-negativity unless it's warranted) but it wasn't very entertaining on a basic level for me.
Directed (and written) by Xan Cassavetes
Characters:
Djuma (Josephine De La Baume)
Mimi (Roxane Mesquida)
Paolo (Milo Ventimiglia)
Not worth seeing. I hate to say that about a small budget film, but the director also wrote it so…I think that’s where it went wrong. Supposedly the movie is set in the 70’s…I couldn’t tell - the only giveaways are the hair and costumes which look too modern and arty. They end up looking weird as opposed to dated. I dunno, maybe the writer/director was going for “timeless” but…it looked like she tried to combine Star Wars with a bunch of artistics from L.A. Point is, I had to look for the era and the costumes/hair were weird until I remembered/placed the era. I clued in at about 3/4ths of the way in when I saw some strange hair and Xendra’s robe that made me laugh - I could not figure out what it was supposed to be besides a joke. Paolo’s character oozed 2012 in his wardrobe or…lack thereof. I think he only had one shirt. I couldn’t tell where the movie was set locational-wise, either, which bothered me a lot because it had a little of everything. A little too much of everything, too convenient.
This movie is flat. I noted when I saw the previews that there was no plot and there isn’t. It’s very, very, very arty. I think it might be trying to convey a visual sensation, an experience while throwing in some people/characters for a reference point. For as much of an ‘animal’ feel as the movie had, the mention of “monsters”…going to high-class parties, premieres and moving to Europe, well, one of these things, again, just doesn’t belong. But it’s not that ‘sensational.’ There were signs of horrid editing, stuff that…should have been more, things that had little/nothing to do with anything and thus didn't need to be there, bad transitions, too weird, making me ask strange, distracting questions constantly… As it was, the scenes were edited very short, unfinished, almost like clips. It got to be annoying it was so bad. It wasn’t the type of ‘cut away’ shot that works for some horror movies, either, because this film is trying to be five different categories at once: horror, drama, sci-fi, romance, indie, documentary/narrative (maybe more).
The dialogue is flat and pointless. I mean really pointless. Whole “scenes” consisting of two characters each saying a line or two as a conversation (most of it said as a voice-over!). I quote this from the film: (Between Paolo and Djuma) “You like hunting.” “I like a lot of things. But I don’t need that [hunting?]” “Me neither.” And later (between Mimi and Djuma): “Did it turn you on?” “(questioning, shocked/denial)What?” “(sassily)…Whut?” between the two ‘sisters.’ One is desperate to play normal house mom, the other is clearly the delinquent, attention/thrill-seeking child. It stank so badly of high school drama, it made Twilight look mature. (I say ‘sisters’ because they don’t look alike and I thought it might be a metaphor of vampire slang, like ‘we were bitten by the same person, so we’re sisters, like blood-brothers.’ That wasn’t the case which I kind of regret. One sister looks Eurpoean to a 'T', the other looks like a girl next door, trying to seduce her friend's dad in a porn movie, then we have Milo/Paolo who just...doesn't fit the movie at all, then we have the maid and Xendra who look like a different kind of European, then we have the quickie victims who all look young, American and modern - so the casting wasn't great, either. The theme was inconsistent and didn't pay off and I've seen it pay off before, like with the Blade movies, where the casting was purposefully offset to show that vampirism wasn't selective with race/location/looks. With Kiss, I couldn't tell where everyone was from to date/place them). Another scene between Paolo and Mimi, the dialogue was painfully bad and immature. The scene made so little sense: Paolo chopping up/draining? Eating? a possum. Okay, it is dead or alive (seeing how it's, y'know, a possum)? Mimi: “You know you don’t have to do that. That possum as already dead. Everyone knows animals don’t come back.” Paolo: “She’s scared, this makes her feel better, it’s fine by me.” Wha- huh? Then he buries it! Why? The dialogue of the human couple was also immature and laughable. The party interactions are blatantly fake and posed. Is it weird that one sister is named Mimi, a more Americanized name, dare I say it, or English/French if you want to get specific, while the other is named DJUMA? I was admittedly looking at the clock to see how the movie would end literally in the last 20 minutes.
I’m sorry, I know casting two European women with thick accents is authentic, but they are difficult to understand and when these two actresses/characters interact it’s just…wow, it was so bad. Very distracting, overacted or underacted, wrong inflections, passionless and not in an ‘I’m so sick of my life, living forever, living this way’ that might make sense. Djuma and Mimi came across as purposefully fake and laughable because they can't emote. Every actor has something going on with their voice except for Milo Ventimiglia’s character, who is American (or close to it). No, I take that back, there was two other male actors, one female actor who were understandable, without accents. They were not the stars or big players, of course. It really made Paolo (Milo’s character) stand out, not in a good way - he was ostracized and he did not fit in. I don’t have a problem with accents, like I said, I think it was kind of authentic (it just didn’t pay off because of the director’s direction or the actresses’ lack of talent, I don’t know. It was better than a Transylvanian accent, I guess). There was one gay vampire with a lisp and I wanted to pimp slap him for being annoying. Xendra was just plain scary (as an actress playing a very weird character as far as facial expression goes) - she sounded like she'd had a tracheotomy from smoking and had to be resuscitated as a vampire. She was not a sexy, mature, artsy woman (which would have been cool), she looked and sounded old and worn. I wanted her to be cool. I have a problem when a movie is…slanted. I can’t say the choice didn’t make sense, it did.
I don’t think you can paint “animals” as high-class bourgeois who are interested and educated in politics. Maybe I missed the point of the movie and that was the point: animals at night, burying things in the yard, functioning members of society with a point of a view, human(ish) rights and ideas. The main conflict seemed oh-so-loosely centered around that struggle of conforming to a society or following one’s base, destructive instincts as a biological programming. (I’ve been reading way too much abnormal psych and criminology theory and it’s showing!) I think that’s a great argument but without a plot, it doesn’t carry. I didn’t care because there were no characters, the conflicts were almost ridiculous and the relationships were beyond phoned in. The whole story feels like it didn't go very far or travel at all. The people who are supposed to get an ending don't, and the person who gets an ending is the one we're not...supposed to like...? I think? I believed more in Xendra and Mimi’s relationship (friends/mentor-student) than I did in Paolo/Djuma (lovers) or Djuma/Mimi (supposedly sisters). Owch. I read a review that said, paraphrased, “Paolo and Djuma are played straight and Mimi is the only interesting thing in the movie.” Mimi’s not *that* unexpected but she is the highlight. And sadly, she is the plot, too.
To continue about the point of the movie, though: There was mention or hint that vampirism was a sort of addiction (makes sense). I thought that was clever, interesting, socially relevant. That’s what sold Mimi’s character to me. She was the “addict” who was trying to convince everyone she was clean when the audience knows she isn’t. Then you have this dilemma of ‘what do we do about it? Can we trust her? Does she want to get better?’ That…was…the plot, as near as I could tell, with very few, underplayed twists. I couldn't tell if Mimi was supposed to be as immature as she came across as sometimes (not all the time, the other times she was scheming).
More about the characters: Djuma (I literally thought her name was “Trina” until I remembered it was some strange African sounding name because Xendra alone consistently said it more correctly than everyone else including American Milo). I wound up feeling sorry for her. She kinda gets screwed over. Her situation did not make me anxious like it should have because I didn’t take it seriously. She wasn’t passive but she wasn’t really active. She whined and complained mostly in strangely melodramatic ways. Maybe it’s a European thing (I want to label her as Russian for some reason) but she did not seem like a happy person and I felt that if I was to like any of the limited things I was shown, I should like her or she should be happy about getting something she wanted (a guy, Paolo). Like Bella, she’s…bland and I don’t see why such an idealist, artistic guy like Paolo would like her. She cries a lot but…I thought she was overly sensitive or overly traumatized but I understand that because of the context, not because she the character/actress sells it in any way. It’s overdone, too, her mascara is running and the wet streaks under her eyes to show us how sad she is because we don’t see the tears fall, the shot just cuts to her with that visual. Kinda weird, you want to cut *out* the emotional build up on purpose? She, like everyone else (but it’s worse for her), gets over things quickly and ignores things I thought were important. I don’t know if it was the director or the actress, but she didn’t do much for me as an actress. But I am biased - I like actors faces that can/do move and emote without setting and context. That’s my albeit narrower definition of ‘acting’ because I have a big blind spot in reading the emotions of an unmoving, blank face. I will say that I liked her body-type - large, natural breasts and a larger behind - it was unique and real. (Getting suspicious that Milo has a type - redheads). There was a lot of talking on the phone in this movie. The maid literally took the house phone out of her purse when she arrived (?) Then the maid took calls for Djuma, like a vampire sleeps during the day and can’t answer it herself? One phone scene made me laugh aloud at how bad the delivery was. Oh, and the movie strongly hints that Djuma can…see the future/past or has weird dreams or she has some telepathic/empathic connection with her sister in the way they edited. Not explained, just…weird. Her fear of Mimi in one scene wasn’t explained because they're both supposedly heal-able, immortal vampires, right? One scene with Djuma and Mimi was so off just in the dynamic - laughable, bothersome and strange, the continued use of props while spying on a little girl in a dress rolling around in the grass...Not creepy at all.
Paolo. An absolute flake. Anyone who thought Peter Petrelli’s character was a cardboard cut-out needs to see this. This guy has no motivation. Paolo’s agent, who is drunk, high and sick at the time, explains his character best. That was his most endearing scene, being described by this strange boss of his. Paolo did nothing wrong throughout (except for one thing that I won’t spoil. It’s a biggie, but the movie glosses over it which is…okay because it works out as ‘tit-for-tat’ but still…I don’t think his sin should be overlooked but when you’re immortal maybe things change, I dunno. It lacked explanation/motive on his part). I see why Milo liked this movie (aside from the fact that I’m starting to think he’s using his acting career to boost his self-esteem or live out his sexual fetishes or pick up his co-stars or prove something to people - it seemed a lot like a giant Milo commercial, a giant Milo insert even though Milo would do things differently than Paolo did) - everyone in it is some kind of artist or vagabond. Writers, actresses, agents, every woman in the movie is asked “are you an actress? No? You should be!” Like…okay, demeaning them much? I guess when you’re a vampire it’s not that flattering but these women don’t seem interested in flattery or able to be flattered by anything. I don’t know if that’s…in keeping with being a vampire or their European background or if they’re just emotionally dead, been-there-done-that. I don’t even know what that repetition/focus is supposed to represent, ‘The [Greek] gods envy mortals because they are mortal [and their lives are short]?’ Great quote but these are hardly kick-ass, enviable, believable vampires.
Paolo and Djuma/Trina: I do have to bring this up. They represent the colloquial Edward/Bella from Twilight, except Djuma, the woman, is the vampire and Paolo, the human man, is the one who wants to be turned. I like that! Totally different, right? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen (at least, I’ve never seen a memorable, good representation) woman/vampire and male/human. It’s fresh, it’s smart…It’s totally wasted. There is zero motive, background, explanation, dynamic, relationship, tension, drama…the list goes on. They stare at each other (a Twilight feature), they meet, she explains she’s a vampire, they have sex, she turns him. Literally. It’s as bad as Twilight in that sense that I have to ask “Why are you doing this? How can you say you love her? She’s kind of bland, you barely know her; you haven’t thought this through.” The viewer as a hopefully rational being is forced to ask, “What is your DEAL with liking people who drink animal blood? You want to kiss that person knowing/seeing that?” And she, Djuma, as the responsible party (in more than one way), goes along with it eventually. Maybe she succumbed to temptation but…boy, I didn’t get that impression clearly. The way they rationalize their love as an eventuality, as an absolute is foundless and funny. 20 minutes of (badly done) set-up for this relationship, that’s it. And as you’d expect, the rest of the relationship is textbook Twilight fantasy. Everything is perfect, convenient and unexplained - I might be able to live with that if they’d given the scenes more substance. More on this a little later. Points for making the (Twilight) love triangle female-male-female instead of male-female-male. It’s fairly subtle, underplayed in my opinion but interesting. It differs from Twilight because the, uh, person in the middle is used for a purpose, not desired by the other member of the triangle (you know, since Jacob loved Bella as did Edward; Jacob wasn’t using Bella to make a point to Edward). Paolo is strangely the one getting the sexist treatment, being the only real male character, just in the way the women talk about him as a thing even after he’s a vampire.
The actors struggled to play their roles. The characters are talked about, referenced (often in near fourth-wall breakage/author/actor-insert ways) more than they show anything or give history, which I find I even care to know. The only one who actively does anything (of interest) is Mimi. As game_byrd mentioned, the maid was wonderful, she had an ARC! I didn't mention her at first because she wasn't technically a main player of any kind. One of her scenes had my mouth hanging open in gleeful horror. I guess she was the sole "twist" in the movie. Yeah, didn't see that coming - the maid did it!
The preview and the actors in interviews really talked up the sex, “It’s carnal, erotic, adult themes” and “arousal; sex.” It wasn’t as moving as I thought it would/should be (especially if vampires have “heightened senses”). There’s not as much sex as I expected there to be, either. One scene was downright passionless. One was overacted to death (no pun intended). Two didn’t make sense. Make that three didn’t make sense - the threesome was laughable (and it’s not the threesome I’d have liked to see). Yeah, there's only about four sex scenes. The first sex scene (Djuma/Paolo) was actually bothersome, I don’t want to give too much away, but it was a classic case of no-motive: “Why do you feel safe? What about that turns you on? Why are you doing that?” which really killed the action. Not to mention the over-the-top writhing of the purposefully “dressed” lingerie shots. She dresses up in lingerie, chains herself to the bed to prove to him she’s a vampire. Um, what? What was the point there (if you’re not going to have sex)? It’s not arousing, it’s barely sexy - she’s not trying to escape and she’s not that distressed, so why struggle? Congrats, your boobs are natural and they do, in fact, jiggle. And which of you, if anyone, is turned on in that situation becuase I can't tell. One quickie male victim wears a condom…I think. It happened so quickly I couldn’t tell for sure (he’s the last person you’d expect to have a freaking condom, too). I know movies like to play with fantasy, that’s their purpose. So I might be nitpicking but since they kind of brought it up, I couldn’t help but want to ask, “You told us upfront all the things vampires can and can’t do, but can they get pregnant? One vampire mentions humans needing to get tested after sleeping with her so…?” No other scenes feature protection/the pill, not even in the (barely) more committed relationship supposedly involving love and ‘playing house.’ Normal/other movies don’t make mention of protection/the pill which is why I say I might be nitpicking. For ‘mature, realistic, artsy, dated-slash-timeless’ it does an okay job of portraying vampire persons, sexually, in a normal world. It's not flashy or overly sexy in context with vampires. I don’t get a sense of consequences being important or factored in to anything so everything is surreal, perfect, fantasyland, Twilight-y…I was expecting the sex to be more. Just “more.” I’ve seen Brad Pitt and a blonde Tom Cruise (in Interview with a Vampire) be more sensual and vampiric than this and it wasn’t a quarter as explicit as Kiss. And I don’t find Pitt or Cruise anywhere near as sexy as I find Milo (they’re certainly harder to see past as vampires, too). With that much freedom, you kind of expect more, but the sex is really rather…normal. I don’t know if that’s a statement or not. The nudity is a few nipple shots and barely a shot of a guy’s backside (not Milo’s, he’s only ever shirtless). Paolo seems to get more out of sex than any of the women, even though as vampires their senses are heightened - he’s louder and visibly orgasms while the women take it in stride (maybe because he’s new and they’ve been around/been vampires longer?). While it’s really nice, refreshing even, to see a guy so into it (I cheer, I appreciate that stuff), not pulling the stoic act, the women kind of downplay it, intentionally or not, I don’t know. I suppose 'short and intense' is a style but it's not...realistic which is kind of the theme of the movie. Paolo's no porn star for stamina but these women barely pant, their reactions are overblown for all of the five minutes it takes Paolo to orgasm, then...nothing. So these women can ignore 4x the nerve endings down there, hyper-sensitive vampire or not? One of the love scenes ended so weird it was off-putting, again, because it raised way too many odd, out-of-place questions. It was so 'just because we can' with some elements.
Since they (the characters) did a pretty basic, bland, in-your-face explanation of ‘how vampirism works (so you don’t get it confused with that Twlight BS) using a voice-over’, they sure don’t explain the…relevance of ‘a virgin’s blood’ even using the word ‘sacrifice.’ Um…okay. And how did we know she was a virgin? By smelling her? Okay, a half a point for making the ‘virgin sacrifice’ scene woman/woman and non-erotic. They don’t explain how people turn into vampires once bitten which is really bad considering the fact that they SHOW Paolo undergoing the transition in…voiced-over, clip “scenes.” I liked the effects sunlight had, more realistic than any other vampire movie I’ve seen. There was little differentiation or importance placed on animal versus human versus synthetic blood…even when it was explicitly mentioned. And the whole ‘healing almost immediately’ thing doesn’t work…But their bite marks disappeared. The overall explanation was laughable, I felt bad for the actors (Milo) who had to deal with that with a straight face. It was so pointed to get across: “here’s how we’re different that Twilight.” I don’t know that I can rightly say if it really stood apart from Twilight except that it was a heck of a lot more realistic in a worldly sense/setting, no vampire super-powers, sparkling and power-crazed councils. (I half expected them to make a comment about sparkling, seriously). Kiss of the Damned was cheesy in dialogue, plot and visuals. It definitely tried to give us a more classic, earthy, mature vampire story. But when details like money/jobs/houses/maids and background come into play with the character’s lack of character…it comes across as immature and fantasyland, playing house, every little girl’s dream. So it’s no more mature than Twilight in that way. And you can’t ignore it because it’s in your face. All the time. You know it when everything is a plot device that isn't working. Maybe it begs the question ‘why do you want to be normal?’ or in Mimi’s case, ‘what do you have against being normal?’ I liked that Mimi seemed…genuinely jealous, which made her the much more believable sister. Djuma was clueless and (apparently) happy, “[bland voice] I loff heem.” Djuma was extremely tame for a vampire, not threatening at all so vampirism was hard to get into when she was our intro character. Maybe she’s the ‘good sister’ but sheesh. The movie didn’t have a point of view/narrative or a main character and it suffered because of that.
The music. Oh, my goodness. It’s a cool song at first. Watch the preview, it’s in there. The director/writer even makes a point of it by having Paolo say, in a judgmental tone at first, “What is she [Mimi] listening to? I kinda like it.” Really? We can’t really tell it’s suddenly part of the characters’ environment when you PLAY IT IN THE BACKGROUND ALL THE TIME. Now picture it for 4/5 of a 1.5 hour movie. Bound to get annoying and old really fast, right? Which is a shame, because the movie starts out with this cool throbbing tone, like blood pounding through your veins, in your ears, right? I thought, cool! I like that, setting the tone and stuff. Yeah, barely used that for one clip of “scene.” The rest of the “music” was annoying….sounds, for lack of a better word, which are also heard in the preview, like a super-annoying wind-chime/chime thing. I kept thinking the percussion was someone banging on a metal trash can lid... Not a very flattering image. And the rest was this annoying hum/static that I swear I've heard in other movies. (Notice how often I used the word "annoy" in all its tenses). The sound faded in and out almost without rhyme or reason.
The visuals. The preview isn’t really edited from the movie, either. So what you see if what you get - that disappointed me. The opening with Djuma sets us up for an inconsistent, unexplained character that isn't given a proper conclusion. There were some cool shots that were just very visually representative, mostly during the beginning and a few at the end, but it was so outweighed by the rest of the useless nature crap. There was one shot that was so gothic it had me eager, going, "yeah!" but it wasn't carried further. That's pretty much all I remember, the beginning and the end because nothing happened in the middle. I was editing the movie as I watched, trying to predict which scenes would be useless before they finished. The movie is listed as horror. Um…why? Nothing happens. It’s got blood, fairly realistic blood (for the most part, not consistently. Some of the biting effects don’t match up if you look closely and the bite effects made me stare to try and figure them out, drawing me eye in ways it shouldn’t). But it’s shot like a suspenseful horror movie, lots of shots of driving in the dark, running through the woods, watching an (extremely creepy…?) bush move (REPEATEDLY) in the dark, the moon/sunrise and birds and a lake…strategically placed deer…(just what?). I felt like I knew that damn bush (not a metaphorical female “bush”) better than I knew the story and characters by the end of it. No cool hunting or eating, barely any vampire-y shots of anything! Nothing jumps out at you. The big ‘reveals’ are purposefully softened and over-explained. There was one bit that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up but it was literally a 5 second shot. At the end. Maybe the movie is too focused on it’s realism (which I do appreciate, truly) that it misses that needed area of otherworldliness…? Again, something just doesn’t fit and I’m not sure which part/half it was. The movie kind of needs to pick a direction and stick with it. So much potential…kind of wasted.
There's two types of 'art.' One: look pretty. Two: say something. I can accept either or both at once. This did neither, which is why I'm so harsh on the 'artiness' here. My definition of 'indie' would probably offend people, so let's just say I don't like it or find it entertaining except to mock it. If this is 'indie', then I still didn't like it for any reason. I get the feeling this movie is the equivelant of Stephanie Meyers' Twilight fantasy - this writer/director has a fantasy to be an actress, writer, director, vampire and...traveler so each character represents something of her fantasy. That viewpoint/idea was so distracting and cliche. I don't know who this director is, but I would not see anything else she does.
Maybe I expected too much (the premise was so fresh and I've been wanting to see this since I heard about it ages ago) or maybe I just don't like arty movies (I don't; I tried to give this one positives/credit where it was due because I criticize critics who are pure-negativity unless it's warranted) but it wasn't very entertaining on a basic level for me.