The Kiss

Intensity

 

Stupidity:Nudity Ratio

8:2

Budget

Studio

80's fashion meets the Exorcist meets Alien meets Super model.

The movie opens at a train station in Africa where the young but sickly Felice is going on a trip with her aunt. Before the train reaches it destination, however, the aunt is dead and Felice no longer looks ill. The scene shifts to 25 years later in Albany, New York where Felice's sister Hillary is throwing a party for her daughter. When they run out of Coke, Hillary runs out to get some and is killed in a freak accident. A few months later Felice shows up and strange accidents start happening to her niece Amy's friends. Felice has a limited amount of time to transfer her inner demon to another host. In the end it seems like Amy is saved, but we are not entirely sure.

A few months after her mother's death, we have a scene that establishes the neighbor as a new mother figure. Naturally this means that they are discussing sex.

Amy and Dad. Hmm, I wonder if wearing a sweater tied around your neck will ever come back in style?

At this point in the movie, Dad has just had a huge fight with Amy and must have second thoughts about Felice. But when he asks the neighbor to look in on Amy, he is all smiles.

As I was watching this movie, I was struck by a couple of things. Oddly enough, one of them was pay phones. I am pretty sure that it was the same pay phone moved from spot to spot because of the convenience of its location. Ten years later and it would be cell phones but in 1988 if you wanted a character to make a phone call, they had to be where a phone was. So you have pay phones outside apartments and by the ticket counter at the airport. The other odd item was the directors use of backgrounds with lines in them. Lots and lots of lines. I don't believe that he was really trying to say something with them, I think it was just a look. But after watching the killer escalator for about 30 seconds it got obtrusive.

Lines, lines, lines. A few examples from the movie.

There is no need for this shot of the floor except for the shadow lines.

You'll have to look close, but the surface of the building is composed of grooved concrete.

And, of course, the killer escalator. We are treated to almost 30 seconds of shots of the escalator before it attacks Amy's friend.

Again, notice the lines? And the convenient pay phone.

Another pay phone. This is actually a really good image that tells me that the director of photography knew what they were doing. However, neither this shot nor the shots of lines had anything to do with the plot or mood of the movie. They just look interesting.

The screenwriter, Stephen Volk, wrote the screenplay for "Gothic" a couple years before this. I have always loved "Gothic" as a visually stunning movie. The movie moved slowly because director Ken Russell would literally stop the show to freeze the actors in a painting like tableau. The Kiss moves along faster but still has some of that visual feel. Part of it is that the director wants to create a home invasion theme. The pool that seems to be Amy's refuge becomes the ultimate battleground. There are several shots of her swimming or lounging by the pool to establish it as her place. So as the action builds to a climax, it's natural for it to move to the pool and then it is a bit of a shock to see it transformed into a trap. (It is also possible that the director just like the way Meredith Salenger looked in a swimsuit.)

Amy in the pool.

Amy talking with Dad. They discuss his loneliness and the possibility that he is drinking too much. This is never mentioned again in the movie.

Felice.

Instead of simply abducting Amy and forcing a transfer which would take all of five minutes, Felice worms her way into the family.

Joanna Pacula does a great job as Felice. She plays her rather low key which goes nicely with the calm control that the character should have. After all, this is a very old entity that has moved from host to host so you would expect it to be confident. Pacula is also gorgeous and the director makes sure we see that. As her character reveals more of her true nature we see her go from plain dresses to tiger striped lounge wear. In the end it is another one of those pictures where a supernatural being with great age and power gets taken down by people who aren't even aware of who or what they are fighting. At least in the old vampire movies a Helsing would show up to help out.

Felice's familiar which is in dire need of a good orthodontist.

While Felice is distracted the familiar is supposed to dispatch the neighbor.

The neighbor manages to stuff the familiar into the bug zapper. I know the mosquitoes are big in Albany, but a bug zapper that can fry a 25 pound cat strikes me as overkill.

What was distracting Felice while her familiar was getting fried? Dad. Meanwhile Amy is tied up in the other room waiting for the transfer.

Amy runs to the church for protection from the evil Felice who laughs at the priest saying that she would not be able to be there if he believed.

Rather then leaving the building and hiding somewhere else in the city, Amy hides in a closet in the church. Is it uncharitable to point out how much the singing choirboy decoration looks like a blow up sex doll?

One of the themes that The Kiss shares with other movies of the 80's is the fallen priest. Most of the time these priests are still good men who want to help people, they just don't have true faith. As a result when confronted with a true incarnation of evil, they are unable to defeat it. Notice that this rarely stops them from attempting to save the innocents from the supernatural, even if it means their death. This confuses me. We are shown a man having a crisis of faith. After committing his life to the service of God, he is having second thoughts about it. Then when confronted with an evil that should prove to him not only the existence of God but the value in his life's work, he still waivers in his belief. Am I missing something here? When placed in a situation that absolutely confirms their convictions, I would expect these guys to become joyous Christian warriors filled with righteous anger. Instead their lack of faith invariably leads to their downfall. Imagine standing on a train track wondering whether or not there is a train coming. As you look up the tracks you see a large metal machine spewing coal smoke barrelling down on you. A normal person would get out of the way. These guys keep standing on the tracks still unsure about the existence of the train.

Felice as a young girl. She is on her way to a hospital, but her guardian takes the cross away from her for safekeeping.

Hillary seems to believe it is protection from the family curse, but she waits until Amy is 16 to give it to her.

After the confrontation in the church, the lapsed priest ends up with the cross, which obviously didn't help him much.

In the prologue we have some captions to establish our location.

We again use captions to establish time and location. Now we know we are in Albany, New York. Why Albany? Haven't the faintest.

Felice (Joanna Pecula) worshipping. I have never been a religious person, but perhaps if the services involved candles and writhing, naked supermodels I might have found the time.

I do have a bit of a problem with the fundamental bad guy theme of the movie. The vessel that seems to be the focus of the evil, is pretty clearly African and apparently has a hereditary aspect as the host goes from aunt to niece. Felice even says that the family owes her a new host. This would indicate to me that perhaps the hosts should be Black. I would also guess that this would be considered an honor for the family involved. Trade a lesser niece for protection for your family by a creature that can use VooDoo to control escalators? Hell, yes, where do I sign? But these are white folk. Really, really white. So why the African reference? Because "The Exorcist" had an African connection. Hillary turns to the church to try to save her daughter and like so many movies in the 70's and 80's, that did not turn out well. Felice is clearly controlled by a demon, except in this case it is a physical entity which turns out to be a parasite that looks a bit like a baby alien just after it rips its way out of your stomach. (The host/parasite theme would be revisited in the Stargate TV series.) She can also do VooDoo if she has an object that belonged to her victim. Technically, Felice is also a zombie. Analysis of her blood revealed the same make up of what they find in corpses (wouldn't that be coagulated?) and she states "you can't kill what is already dead". Once again we have a villianess that can do anything the script calls for. Cause a freak accident that kills her sister? Piece of cake. Pissed off at Amy's friends unkind remarks? One out of control escalator coming up! Amy's boyfriend sees you performing a sinister ritual? Send your familiar after him. Have the heroine trussed up in a bed and only have to kiss her to transfer the host to the new body? Nope. Sigh. IITS.

Whatever spell Felice put on Amy instead of simply doing the transfer and being done with it wears off.

An attempt that is ultimately thwarted by Dad and the neighbor.

While it seems that the parasite is dead, there is a slight doubt in the ending.

Felice fondles the vessel that seems related to the curse...

... which causes the killer escalator to grab Amy's friend's necklace...

... which drags her up and causes her grievous damage. And yes, it is every bit as silly as it sounds.

Yeah, once again the director elected to keep things interesting by using different abilities to have different killings. It is a common enough device, but it still annoys me. It is a little like the bad guy having a gun that shoots bullets in one scene, poison darts in another and flames in yet another. While it makes the monster more formidable it rather undercuts the ability of the protagonists to vanquish said monster. The demon controlling Felice is presumably hundreds of years old, has the ability to control events remotely and can bend people's will. She has Amy unconscious and tied to a bed and only has to transfer the parasite to a new host and what does she do? Nothing. She waits for the dad to return home. After she gains control of him, does she simply put him out of the way and continue on with the transfer? No. She lets him answer the phone and talk to the neighbor. Okay, now surely she will get it over with? Alas, no. She has sex with dad again. This allows the dad and the neighbor to continue to interfere with the transfer which suddenly has to be done immediately. Whenever I see this type of convoluted plot device I am reminded of Mark Twain's essay on James Fenimore Cooper's writing. Twain rips Cooper's writing to shreds and provides a detailed analysis of one particularly suspenseful passage involving a barge, a tree and some indians. The indians are waiting in a tree as the barge passes beneath them. As they jump onto the barge only a couple of them land on it and the others miss and fall in the river which provides the good guys with a reasonable number of adversaries. As Twain deconstructs the scene we are left with an image of a band of indians hanging on to a branch over the river in what must surely be plain sight. Cooper's description of the barge not only made it too big for the river but means that it would take a several minutes for it to pass completely under the branch. The result is that the marauders would patiently be hanging on to the branch while yard after yard of barge went by until there was only enough time for two of them to land on it . The rest obligingly jumped into the river. You see what I am getting at here? Felice has Amy alone and instead of taking care of business, she has sex with dad.

All in all it is still an enjoyable movie but not in the way it was intended. The reoccurring themes of the lines in the background, the overly convenient pay phones and the horrific 80's fashion are plenty entertaining in their own way. Coupled with the blatant theft of themes from other horror movies of the era makes for a enjoyable time for a B movie aficionado. Probably what makes it a decent film to watch is the pace. The movie moves right along and does not get bogged down in unimportant details. For example, Amy apparently has a boyfriend but we don't see much of him. There is a scene where he and his ear ring are introduced then he is killed off by Felice. Another of Amy's friends is introduced, insults Felice and then is mauled by an escalator and never mentioned again. When the neighbor meets Felice for the first time, she sneezes, declares she is deathly allergic to cats and then never mentions it (or sneezes) again. I could go on, but you get the point. Something is always happening in the movie so there is little time to go "Wait. What?". Consider this. There is no ritual that Amy has to go through to be the host. She does not have to do it willingly. She does not even need to be conscious. You would think that with the ability to mystically control escalators, a familiar, and being able to set priests on fire, that Felice could overpower Amy and take care of business. Of course if she did that the movie would be about two minutes long and this would be the entire plot: Felice is taken over by an entity in the Belgian Congo, 25 years later she tracks down her niece in Albany, New York and the entity transfers to Amy. The end.

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