Kiss of the Damned

Kiss of the Damned has great cinematography and music, but the writing and acting really bring it down. 

When I saw the trailer for this movie, I loved the music, and I like Milo from Gilmore Girls, so I was pretty much hooked. Roeper didn't review it, but at least one person on IMDb said it wasn't terrible, so I watched it. It turned out to be pretty interesting. The best part about it is the music. It's really good. All the songs fit the scenes perfectly, and the parts of it that are original score are amazing.

I also liked the look of it. I think it was Milo who described it as sort of a European feel, and I guess that could be true, I wouldn't know. But there are lots of cool camera angles, like when Paolo and Djuna are kissing through the barely-open door, and when Djuna is going towards the door and we see it first as her reflection on the table. I really liked how the scene where they first saw each other was shot, too; cut to Djuna, cut to Paolo, and then pan back through the store to Djuna. It gave a good sense of where they were in relation to each other.

I loved the foreshadowing of "trouble" written on the stairway wall when Mimi left the club. The music in that scene was great, and it turns out the sound director picked it out. Xan thought she was going to replace it later, but she wound up really liking it. I loved that Roxane decided to wear that boa as a top. It fit her character perfectly. It was interesting how much Roxane liked that character. I didn't see her as likeable at all, but for Roxane it was perfectly natural to like her.

It was kind of weird how quickly Paolo and Djuna got together. It didn't make a lot of sense. I guess it does if you look at it from the perspective of them just being drawn to each other, a "love at first sight" kind of thing, and also Paolo just being really bored and frustrated with his life, and looking for a change, and being attracted to the dangerous side of Djuna. Maybe all that isn't spelled out clearly enough in the movie, though.

I really liked the name Djuna. It's so exotic. I loved Djuna and Mimi's accents. I guess they're just French, but they sounded like some crazy accent I've never heard before. Their speech was a little stilted, though. It might've been a better movie with native English speakers. It was so bizarre that it almost seemed like the syncing was off at times, and it was really distracting.

I liked that Djuna wore those weird gothic clothes. I like the idea that she's lived for a long time, and she can just wear whatever she likes best out of any decade. Her makeup was cool, too. I liked the way they did the vampires, just with the contacts and teeth, nothing crazy, nothing too gross, but definitely animalistic and monster-like. The way they killed things was weird, though. There was always so much blood spraying everywhere. You would think they would want to drink that, not just get it all over the walls.

The acting for the side characters was pretty bad, especially when the vampires were sitting around philosophizing about civilization. That whole scene was just bad. I was really interested to see what they'd have to say, but it fell flat. And most of the actors in the scene were just friends of the director who aren't even actors, so that explained a lot. The couple that Mimi had a threesome with were *terrible* actors. I felt like I was watching a cheesy horror movie when they were walking along the road. I thought it was really interesting that the girl didn't try to help the guy when she could tell he ran into trouble, though. She just started running away. You don't see that often.

And that was dumb, too. Djuna shouldn't have let them get away like that. She knew what would happen. The same goes for when Djuna let Paolo's agent sleep in the house. Sure he shouldn't drive home, but you could call him a taxi. Maybe you seem a little rude not letting him sleep there, but it's better than killing him. I didn't like how easily Paolo slept with Mimi, either. If he was so in love with Djuna, why would he do that? And how can she forgive him so easily? If it was that easy for him to do it that time, he's just going to keep sleeping with random people in Rome. That really ruined the "love story" aspect of the movie for me. I guess Djuna just doesn't care. Maybe she'll sleep with some guys, too.

Skin always looks weird in horror movies. It looks so plastic and stretchy when zombies/whatever tear it off. I feel like real skin wouldn't look like that. Like, chicken skin doesn't look like that, even before it's cooked. So they need to make some advances in that area. It was really satisfying seeing Mimi dying. I love how the maid just stuck her in a plastic bag. I was wondering what the foreshadowing was about when the maid overheard Djuna talking about how Mimi was on a killing spree. I was hoping it wasn't going to be something bad for Djuna. I felt really frustrated about Xenia getting blackmailed like that, so I'm glad Mimi's not going to be a problem for her after all. I hope she can go back to being civilized after falling off the wagon, though. What Mimi did there was a total surprise. I knew she was trying to get her to kill that girl, but I didn't know why.

I really want to rate this movie higher because the music and cinematography are so good, but there are just too many things wrong with it. There are a couple of good lines, though, like when the vampire at the party says something like "the first hundred years are hell, but after that it's a breeze," like a hundred years is nothing, and when Paolo's agent welcomes him to the human race, which is ironic because now is when he's not human anymore.