Starring: Lourdes Colon, Lendon LaMelle, Valerie Feuer, Angie Rachelle Hauk, Michael Galvez, Jack Hill

Written & Directed By: Scott Madden

Released: 2008

Grade: B

The Kiss is a vampire film dealing with love, immortality, and a murderous nature. The story takes place in Hell in 1802 with the queen of the snake clan being trapped in a coffin and buried underground by a vampire slayer. She is stuck there for the next 200 years until she can manage to get enough energy to shout for help, trying to reach ears that will listen and save her. It does this dealing with two characters who are essential opposites; one an ancient Latin vampire risen from death and the other a teenage loner numb to everything around him. We witness how their time together changes both of their existences so severely.

18 year-old Jeremy (LaMelle) keeps to himself completely, barely acknowledging anyone around him. His contact with his mother, Katherine (Feuer) is limited to her trying to talk to him through the door, not even seeing each other face to face. He doesn’t do his school work and his grades a severely suffering because of it. The one thing he seems to be interested in is Carrie (Hauk), a smart and popular girl at his school. The only problem is that she is dating Javier (Galvez), an aggressive, cheating football player. Carrie doesn’t seem to want much to do with Jeremy anyway hinting as if she thinks she is better than him. Javier doesn’t care about this, he becomes territorial and with the help of his friends bully Jeremy. While running away from them he stumbles in to an abandoned house. He hears a voice screaming for help. He suddenly seems to be in a dark and gloomy desert, with this voice continuing to call out to him. He eventually finds a coffin and releases the skeleton inside. Following her orders, he takes it to the house he entered. He begins to help her by feeding her worms, but soon she craves blood. At first this isn’t too challenging. Jeremy attacks small animals and drains their blood for his new love, Santa Maria (Colon).

From this point on things drastically change for both of them. Santa Maria turns from a skeleton back in to a human and all of the blood and decay on her is transformed to smooth youthful skin. Things at school start looking better for Jeremy. Girls seem to be swarming around him. Even Carrie seems to have found a difference she likes in him. Even Javier and his friends seem too powerless against him and they even call a truce with each other. Santa Maria declares Jeremy to be the master of her heart and they seem to be completely in love and happy. However, as Maria desperately wants to keep the strength she has, her appetite begins to grow and she craves more blood. Santa Maria says that she wants to meet Jeremy’s new friends and has him invite them over for a party. Nearly all of his friends that come seem like they are just there to mock Santa Maria. As the night heats up and the guest are shacking up with one another, Santa Maria interferes, killing them one by one, thirsty for the blood and to satisfy her jealousy. As Jeremy and her love is questioned it is revealed that perhaps she never loved him in the first place, but was just using him to gain life and to take others‘.

Lourdes Colon is very convincing and is able to lure the viewer in just as her character does to Jeremy. Colon and Lendon LaMelle work well together and establish a very interesting relationship. Santa Maria is definitely in the position of power, even though without Jeremy she would just be some bones lying in a grave in the desert of Hell. She is the one that gives him the only thing resembling happiness that he has felt in quite some time. When he strays to others, those are the ones that pay for his lack of attention to her. Both of them are given a life that they didn’t have before. Valerie Feuer also did pretty well as Jeremy’s mother trying to find love herself and just trying to not completely lose her son. Most of the high school kids were much less appealing though as a result of the combination of the acting and just how the characters themselves were. The main reason why Jeremy was such an outcast was because he was different. Everyone else in his school seemed to be one of the popular kids. It just seems really hard to believe that Jeremy is the one person in his entire school that isn’t this way, making them all seem very unrealistic and distracting. At least the majority of the story was based on the characters that were more likeable and interesting.

The film opens up with a dark stone like look, creating a very cold tone. This tone continues through out the rest of the film. It is not a warm hearted love that is depicted, but a withdrawn yet intense and even life threatening love. This mix of lusting and violence is displayed with dark tones contrasted with a vibrantly lively red, as a foreshadowing of the blood shed that will occur and the hearts that will either be toyed with or connected. The violence exerted in the film is the result of revenge, survival, and immortality. Having the invisibility and ultimate control over anyone who threatens you or your way of life is a powerful thing. This ability makes a person become the thing that horrifies and repulses them the most in a very animalistic way. The film questions the meanings of love, whether it is truly there, just another means of deception and a result of the hunt, or a way to gain some sense of living. The Kiss uses a well developed back story and stylistic visuals to expose a relationship deriving in a desire to live youthfully forever through lust, love, or simply to prey on the luscious and bountiful blood that it offers.