Friday, April 12, 2013

Kiss Suck Kill

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On the one hand, when you look back at the slinky sexy little vampire movies that director Xan Cassavetes is riffing on with Kiss of the Damned, the lead male characters were always kind of the blandest thing in the room. What you remember is the ladies - writhing, sheer-topped, wanton things with untraceable accents and big teeth slash everything.

So in that vein, Milo Ventimiglia is kind of the perfect lead. But on the other hand there's a lot of talk in Kiss of the Damned about the magnetic force of Milo's presence, and you just kinda wanna laugh every time it's spoken of. Don't get me wrong - I like to look at Milo, and so does the movie, and he looks really good these days. But there's no mystery when you watch him, while the movie keeps insisting there is, and it makes the movie seem kinda... well, dumb. Like you really would like the movie to say, "Ha ha, we're fooling you, we were playing this dude the whole time!" But it isn't - apparently we are really supposed to be entranced by Milo's otherworldy something-or-other. And that's as dead on arrival as the vampires themselves.

But that rather central complaint aside, there's still a lot to like very much about Kiss of the Damned if you're a fan of the genre. It looks and sounds great - Cassavetes gets the feel to a tee. Love the way the dialogue's got that canned air, vaguely dubbed, as if everyone were speaking their lines with their backs to us in a tunnel. Right on, that. And Joséphine de La Baume and Roxane Mesquida are lovely as the bitter sisters Milo finds himself set amongst. But my heart was smitten with another - Anna Mouglalis, who plays the wealthy benefactor slash de facto leader of this gang of aristocratic bloodsuckers, owns the screen. The movie came alive whenever her character was around; really, I kept wishing she was all I was watching for ninety minutes. She's like the embodiment of these movies poured into haute couture and given a couple Valium and plopped onto the screen. Fabulous.

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