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Sep 19, 2013 Issue #47 - September/October 2013 - MGMT By Austin Trunick

Xan Cassavetes—daughter of actor-filmmaker John Cassavetes—wrote and directed this grueling vampire tale. Cassavetes seemed to fashion her debut about a lonely, immortal vamp who falls in love with a mortal, chiseled screenwriter after trashy schlock auteurs Jess Franco and Jean Rollin, and she gets several details right—bold color palettes, super-stylized lighting, stiff dialogue uttered in thick accents, and blunt, in-your-face sex scenes—while offering nothing new to the genre. As the absurdly attractive undead continue to over-saturate not only our horror but romantic tales, we need our storytellers to do more than draw painfully obvious parallels between drinking blood and making love. Kiss of the Damned is hardly as deep—and nowhere near as fun—as your average episode of True Blood. (www.magnetreleasing.com/kissofthedamned/)

Author rating: 2/10