Dreadfully Boring

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

THE KISS starts off in typical American suburban territory with a normal family who you just know are going to be plagued by sinister events (just like the family in POLTERGEIST. And THE ENTITY. And THE GATE. And THE AMITYVILLE HORROR. The list is endless.) In the first half of the film, there is a lot of expository material like this, and it's quite boring indeed. A little boring and a little dull and even hard to sit through in places. Luckily, there are some meaty deaths to enliven the proceedings, which are pretty gory when it comes down to it. I wasn't expecting gore of this sort so I was pleasantly surprised. The film then takes an upward turn towards the conclusion, and guess what? It actually becomes quite good. Not amazing or ground breaking, but quite enjoyable. Lots of fighting and magic things and deaths occur and they blend together well, like a nice bowl of vegetable soup.The acting is all right. Joanna Pacula is splendidly evil, but not over the top. She also sheds her clothes rapidly too, another surprise. Meredith Salenger is annoying, yes, but not as annoying as her '90s counterpart Neve Campbell. thankfully. The gore really adds to this film and makes it pretty enjoyable. The plot is executed well too, and there are enough turns and thrills to keep the viewer engaged in the action. I had a good experience with this film. I didn't expect much from it but I found myself enjoying it. A big surprise seeing as I usually hate family-orientated horror films such as these, full of drippy sentimentality and obnoxious actors and actresses. THE KISS isn't anything brilliant, but it's good enough to be better than average. Slightly.

I wouldn't say this is boring, but in the end "The Kiss" didn't do too much for me. It's a commonplace witchcraft tale in what is a primitively decent little late 80's supernatural occult horror item. There are moments of creativity, from its story arches to its grisly, mean- spirited imagery (there being some neat twisted special effects on show by Chris Walas), but still evident is that it does seem to meander at times (who knew tree trimming could be relaxing), sometimes the messy plot just throws in things with no explanations (what about that ugly looking artifact statue and where the hell did that nasty looking feral cat come from?!), secondary characters are less interesting (although Mimi Kuzyk has her moments) and eventually the overall silliness takes control (wait around for the overblown climax involving a late-night dip). However it can be atmospherically tense and quite sexed-up with the mysteriously fetching Joanna Pacula seductively manipulating things to her advantage as this scarlet happens to be possessed by some sort of ancient curse that's passed on through the females of the same bloodline with a kiss.The story opens up in the early 1960s in the Belgian Congo, where a young girl is inflicted with ancient curse from her auntie. Twenty-five years later, the girl Felice is a famous fashion model travelling the world, which suddenly turns up in New York after the strange accidental death of her older sister. There she meets her teenage niece Amy (a strong performance by Meredith Salenger), but Amy isn't so keen on her and wonders why her mum never talked about her. Yet Felice does have plans for Amy to become heir to this horrifying family legacy.Generic and rather blotchy, but Pen Densham's direction etches out some style and Pacula has a hypnotic screen presence that not only intrudes on the family, but also the viewer. "Amy if your curious about me, all you have to do is ask."

I used to watch this little-known Canadian b-horror movie on Frighnight Theater with Whitey Gleason. He said he enjoyed the film because its main special effects artist worked on "The Fly". In the film, a young teenager named Amy loses her mother to a tragic car crash. Her mother was on her way to visit Amy's aunt, who was a fashion model. Soon after the funeral, the aunt moves in with Amy's widowed father and, besides hooking up with the father and brainwashing him, begins using voodoo magic to kill off Amy's friends. She intends to isolate Amy so she can transfer a snake-like voodoo vampire creature out of her body into Amy's. Apparently the aunt and the snake thing will die if she has the creature in her too long. There is a great b-horror movie death scene at the end, complete with exploding propane tanks, wet fighting women, and a snake in the pool :)

Not a very good horror offering. There was actually some fairly inventive gore. I am a fan of Joanna Pacula, and she was one of the rare bright spots in this film. She is lovely, and a marvelous actress. I wish she had gotten some of the better roles in Hollywood, because I think she would have become a superstar. But I suppose that, at her age, that opportunity will never come to pass. Meredith Selenger and Mimi Kuzyk did as well here as the material allowed. I was very unimpressed with Nicholas Kilbertus. And most of the other criticism I've read about this film is warranted, the gaping plot holes, the over-direction, etc. And, oh, yeah, the evil cat thing looked about as real as the Caddyshack gopher. I can only recommend this to fans of Pacula or Selenger. Grade: F