Europe, the early 1900's. Gerald and Marianne Harcourt, a young, English newlywed couple, are traveling the continent in a motorcar, when they run out of petrol. Gerald manages to get them towed to a hotel near a small village, one that's run by an older couple and doesn't get as many guests as it used to. However, the landlord, Bruno, is more than happy to take them in, while his wife, Anna, is fairly aloof and distant. Shortly after they get settled in, a coach arrives with a letter from Dr. Ravna, who lives in a chateau in the mountains, inviting the Harcourts to have dinner with him. Told that Ravna's table is the finest in the country, they decide to take him up on his offer. Arriving at the chateau, they find the inside to be much more accommodating than the exterior would have one think, and Ravna himself proves to be a very charming host, as do his son, Carl, and daughter, Sabena. Carl is also an accomplished pianist, but when he plays a composition of his own, Marianne seems literally entranced by it, to the point where she seems like she's about to faint. They then head back to the hotel, where they spend another day, stuck inside by lousy weather, and find evidence that their hosts are hiding some sort of tragic secret, as they see Anna sobbing in a room while clutching certain items, and later investigate and find they're the belongings of a young woman named Tania, likely her daughter. Gerald also has an unusual encounter with the hotel's other guest, Prof. Zimmer, a solitary man who spends most of his time getting drunk. Zimmer seems anxious for the Harcourts to leave as soon as possible and advises Gerald not to go around asking questions during his stay. That day, Carl and Sabena stop by the hotel to invite the Harcourts to a large party they're planning to throw that Saturday night, saying they'll provide formal wear for both of them. However, they leave just as quickly as they arrived when Zimmer appears and mentions that the weather is clearing and the sun is coming out. Come Saturday night, they attend the party, a masquerade ball, and everything goes well, until Marianne is separated from Gerald and lured into an upstairs room, where Ravna, who is actually a vampire, hypnotizes and bites her. Gerald, meanwhile, is given a "special" drink and led upstairs where he can sleep off his extreme drunkenness. When he awakens, he finds the party has completely disbanded and everyone, including those who run the hotel, deny Marianne even existed. Marianne has now been made the new disciple of a vampire cult Ravna heads, and Gerald's only hope of saving her is Zimmer, an expert on the occult who has a personal vendetta against Ravna.
After Gerald awakens and everyone denies that Marianne even existed, Zimmer proves to be his one ray of hope, as he knows exactly what's going on. He tells Gerald of vampires and how, if someone who is cursed with vampirism decides their condition is something to be celebrated and shared rather than reviled, he often begins building a cult. Zimmer then reveals that his beloved teenage daughter ran away from home and was corrupted by Dr. Ravna, whom he has traced to the area. Having now freed her from Ravna's influence (she was the vampire woman in the film's opening), Zimmer intends to do what he must in order to destroy the cult up in the chateau. He stops Gerald from rushing up there immediately, telling him Marianne is safe as long as the sun is up, and gives him a drugged drink to make him sleep until nightfall. Though Gerald does go the chateau when he awakens that evening and is captured, Zimmer arrives and helps him escape with Marianne and they work together to get rid of their large, human servant. Before they leave, Zimmer marks the front entrance with a cross image made from a distillation of garlic. Once they get back to the hotel, Zimmer has Bruno send for Father Xavier, but when Bruno is reluctant to do so, Zimmer knows it's because of Tania, his daughter. Empathizing with him, Zimmer asks Bruno if he wants Marianne to suffer the same fate as Tania and this encourages him to fetch the priest. Zimmer, meanwhile, tells Gerald of his plan to perform a ceremony called Corpus Diabolo Levitum, which he describes as a means of forcing evil to destroy itself and can only be performed under certain conditions, which are in effect that particular night. While Zimmer performs the ceremony, Gerald leaves the room and goes to check on Marianne, only to learn she's heading back up to Ravna's chateau. Fortunately for everyone, the ceremony proves successful, with the vampires being destroyed and Marianne being freed from Ravna's influence.
There's not much to say about Sabena (Jacquie Wallis), Ravna's daughter, as she doesn't do anything of note, other than keep Gerald occupied at the party, plying him with more and more champagne and getting him progressively drunk, until she finally gives him a drink that turns out to be drugged. As he begins to feel its effects, she takes him upstairs and, when he finally passes out, has him carried into her bedroom to sleep it off. Besides that, she's merely a bystander, often acting very friendly towards Marianne, complimenting her on how lovely she is and eagerly asking her to come to the party, coming off as bubbly and ecstatic when she and Gerald both agree. More noteworthy is Tania (Isobel Black), who is first seen when she slips out of the chateau while Ravna introduces the Harcourts to his son and daughter. She heads to the village graveyard, wondering why the woman who was buried there during the prologue, Prof. Zimmer's daughter, hasn't risen and joined them yet. When she digs up the grave, she finds that the woman has been impaled with a shovel, and is then confronted by Zimmer himself, who grabs her wrists and struggles with her. She bites him on the hand with her fangs, forcing him to let go and allowing her to escape back to the chateau. She's eventually revealed to be the daughter of Bruno and Anna, the people who own the hotel, though Anna denies her existence out of despair. Regardless, when Gerald heads back to the chateau to rescue Marianne, he, despite now knowing of the nature of vampires, believes Tania is merely being held captive and asks her to take him to Marianne. Unfortunately for him, she instead leads him to straight to Ravna, who entraps him, and she herself is told to make him a vampire as well. However, Gerald is able to stop her and he and Zimmer escape the chateau with Marianne.
Though he and his wife run a hotel that, thanks to Ravna, gets hardly any visitors, and they've also lost their daughter to the vampires, Bruno (Peter Madden) sincerely tries to make the Harcourts' stay as comfortable as it can be, especially when he realizes they're newlyweds. His wife, Anna (Vera Cook), however, is so broken about Tania that she's hardly willing to put aside her grievances for them, as seen when Gerald and Marianne see her sobbing over some personal items of Tania's in a room after they return from the chateau. Speaking of which, when the invitation from Ravna to dine with them comes, Bruno insists they go, saying that Ravna's table is the finest in the country and he himself is a very distinguished gentleman. Because of that, it's unclear at this point whether or not Bruno actually knows that Ravna and his family are vampires or that he's the one responsible for what's happened to Tania, but given that he later says he only learned Tania was up at the chateau the night of the party, and it was then that his demeanor changed, as he was being forced to deny Marianne's existence, it could be possible he didn't have any idea the kind of danger he was putting the Harcourts in when he encouraged them to dine with Ravna. Or, at the very least, he felt had no choice and futilely hoped Ravna wouldn't pose a threat to them. In any case, while Anna is never seen again after she tearfully bids Marianne goodbye when they head out to the party, after having fitted her for her dress (it's later said she refused to talk to the police when Gerald called them), Bruno is eventually talked into helping Zimmer and Gerald fight Ravna, as he decides he doesn't want Marianne to suffer Tania's fate, and, to that end, has a letter sent to Father Xavier.
While it is, in the end, a Gothic horror film, The Kiss of the Vampire is also very much a suspense thriller, one that pars down the usual elements of these types of movies. In fact, it's not hard to imagine this would have been the kind of movie Alfred Hitchcock would have made had Hammer ever managed to hire him for one of their projects. One of the most Hitchcockian elements is the idea of using a fancy dinner party taking place at an upper class establishment to expose something decadent and evil underneath this facade of high society: in this case, it's the Ravna family holding this elegant masquerade party purely as a way for Ravna to trap and begin his corruption of Marianne. This is accomplished by a method you could definitely see Hitchcock employing: Carl replacing his own mask with one resembling Gerald's and using it to trick Marianne into thinking he's her husband so he can lure her to his father. In fact, this poking through the veneer of a supposedly civilized, aristocratic family had already begun in the first scene of the Harcourts visiting the chateau, where Carl plays his piano a second time for Marianne, only for his tune to have a sinister, mesmerizing effect on her. And Marianne's very existence being denied to Gerald after he awakens following the party, right down to all of her things having vanished from the hotel room, is a version of a popular urban legend that Hitchcock made into his 1938 film, The Lady Vanishes, and also made up the plot of an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, as well as a 1950 film called So Long at the Fair (which was co-directed by Terence Fisher).
The depiction of the vampires is one of the most unique aspects of this film when compared with many of Hammer's other vampire flicks. The Ravna family and the members of the cult they oversee are able to pass themselves off as normal people far more effectively than Count Dracula or Baron Meinster ever did. They seem like either a perfectly normal family or party guests simply having a good time, only revealing their true nature when the need arises, and even then, they're usually very composed, with Ravna coming off as the patriarch of an organized crime family more than a bloodsucking undead. Even their cult isn't what you might expect, as they come off more like fanatical satanists, with their white robes, precise seating arrangements, and doing their business in a large room of astrological symbols, than as a den of vampires. Ravna himself and Tania are the only ones whom you see with fangs and even then, they're hardly animalistic and brutish. In fact, only Tania, in the scenes where she fights off Prof. Zimmer and is about to bite Gerald, is anything like what you'd come to expect in a Hammer vampire movie and even then, she's rather subdued. Speaking of which, some of the usual tropes are not present here. The vampires dislike crucifixes, be it actual ones or mere images of them, as well as anything to do with garlic, they have hypnotic powers, and have to avoid sunlight, but that's about it, and the latter convention is turned on its head, regardless, as it's revealed they can come out in the daytime as long as the sun is hidden behind clouds. They don't seem to need to sleep in a coffin during the day, either, with Ravna describing the chateau itself as an "ornate coffin." Plus, when you first see him, he's spying on the Harcourts with his telescope as they run out of petrol, which takes place in the middle of the day (incidentally, he's also directly exposed to a ray of sunlight when he leans slightly out the window to get a better look at Marianne at one point), and when Marianne finds him in the upstairs room during the party, he's lying on a cushioned slab in a small space hidden by a curtain, rather than a coffin. Only during the opening prologue do you get the sort of graphic staking scene you'd expect in one of these films and that's twisted somewhat, as a shovel is used. And finally, while bats do figure into this film during the climax, the vampires themselves don't ever turn into them.
The film kind of expands on an idea that was first put forth in The Brides of Dracula, that of vampirism being the result of a decadent life-style and a social disease. As Prof. Zimmer tells Gerald, "When the devil attacks a man, or woman, with this foul disease of the vampire, the unfortunate human being can do one of two things: either he can seek God through the church and pray for absolution, or he can persuade himself that his filthy perversion is some kind of new and wonderful experience to be shared by the favored few. Then he tries to persuade others to join his new cult." How Dr. Ravna and his family became vampires is never made clear, but at one point, during the Harcourts' first visit with them, Ravna mentions having conducted some scientific experiments, "One of which went... wrong... Anyway, that is why I can never return to the city of my birth, why I live here, locked in this ornate coffin." It could be possible that Ravna's experiments, whatever their exact nature, laboratory-based or social, or how he went about conducting them, involved the curse of vampirism and that, once he became one, he decided his children were among the "favored few," as was Zimmer's daughter. Zimmer's story about what happened to his daughter, that she began living with Ravna after she ran away to the city and had mixed in with a bad crowd that passed themselves off as a "smart set," as he describes them, is also very similar to Greta's story about Baron Meinster getting mixed up in a bad crowd, one of whom, likely Count Dracula himself, turned him into a vampire.
While his interior sets for Castle Dracula and the Chateau Meinster may have already been worlds removed from the broken-down, cobweb-infested ruins featured in the Universal films, Bernard Robinson went even further with the interior of the Ravna family's chateau, as this is far from what you would expect to see in a Gothic vampire film, especially given how traditionally sinister and dark the exterior is. There's a real feeling of life to this place, at least in the downstairs areas, with bright lights, vibrant colors, and lovely furniture and artwork. The main foyer beyond the front door is a large and impressive room, lit by plenty of candelabras, with nice-looking paintings and other decorations adorning the walls, stained glass windows, a leather chair by the door, and even a cage with a couple of pet birds. The room off to the right of the foyer is also very pleasing to the eye, as it features a grand piano on a shiny floor, lovely, green-colored, swirly columns in one corner, a fireplace in the back, and a globe in front of a terrace off to the side. Both of these rooms are made to look even more spectacular during the party, where the foyer is turned into a place where drinks and food are served and is lit by multicolored, oriental-style paper lamps, whereas the room with the piano is turned into a lovely and elegant dance floor. The upstairs area has corridors that are a little more traditionally Gothic, even kind of medieval, as they're brown in color and are rather dimly lit, with torches on the wall apparently being the sole source of light. Ravna's den is an interesting room, as it's fairly compact, with a globe made up of various brass rings sitting in the middle of the floor, a chair in front of a large window with astrological symbols drawn on it, and a space hidden by a curtain that serves as his resting place. And just beyond that is a large, columned room, with no furniture, candelabras and large candlesticks on the floor, and tall, stained glass windows up front, which is where the vampires gather together as a cult, sitting in a specific pattern on the floor.
The only other notable interiors sets Robinson had to create were the inside of the hotel, and while they're certainly not as extravagant as the inside of the chateau, there is a sort of homey, cozy feel to some of them, such as the tiny main lobby and the small dining room where the Harcourts have breakfast with Bruno and Anna in one scene. The rest of the place, including the Harcourts' own room, has a sort of sparseness to it, with most of the furniture covered up in dusty sheets, owing to how they don't get many visitors. The room where they see Anna crying over Tania's stuff is especially hollow and somber-looking. Most noteworthy of all, though, is Prof. Zimmer's room upstairs, which is filled to the brim with all manner of items pertaining to the occult, such as lots of garlic hanging from the walls, dead bats, various stuffed animal parts, jars of liquid and herbs, crucifixes, bizarre drawings dotting the walls, and countless stacks of books. It also serves as the spot where he invokes the power that destroys the vampires, as he draws a symbol on the floor that plays a large part in the ceremony.
Hammer's beloved Black Park gets quite a bit of use here as the country roads where the Harcourts first break down and also where Gerald stumbles to after he's thrown out of the Ravnas' chateau. You not only get to see the place in the daytime but also on a fairly sunny day, with rays of sunlight streaming through here and there, which is definitely a rarity and shows off its beauty. Even then, they do manage to create something of an atmosphere for the scene early on where, while waiting for Gerald to come back with help, Marianne becomes frightened and wanders away from the motorcar, with harsh wind and strange animal sounds making the place come off as kind of creepy. The area around Bray Studios also gets some use as both the exteriors of the hotel and Ravna's chateau, the latter of which is, as I said, more sinister-looking on the outside, with a large gate with an "R" above it that sits at the end of the driveway, as well as for the small village graveyard where the film begins and where Prof. Zimmer has his little struggle with Tania. The latter scene takes place on a fog-riddled night, which makes for one of the few classically Gothic scenes in the film.
While I can appreciate Don Sharp's desire to make a different kind of Hammer horror film, one of the movie's major drawbacks is that it has little of the atmosphere that these movies often drip with. Save for that moment with Marianne in the woods early on, it's never really that creepy, and the cinematography, by Alan Hume rather than the usual Arthur Grant, while nice enough to look at, especially in the scenes set in the chateau, is pretty so-so overall, with few shots that really stand out as anything special, save for maybe a unique use of handheld camerawork for when Gerald's POV when he stumbles drunkenly through the chateau. There's little of the really good lighting and use of shadows you often get with these films, even in scenes that are meant to take place in partial or total darkness, and while day-for-night is nothing new for Hammer, it's really noticeable here, especially in the exterior scenes of the climax, when Marianne is called back to the chateau and Gerald and Father Xavier rush to stop her. I will say, though, that the filmmakers do manage to create something of a dreary, downbeat sort of feel with how often it rains, and the cinematography does compliment the emptiness of the hotel, alluding to how the presence of Ravna and his family in the area has literally sucked the life out of it, with Bruno and Anna being especially hard-hit.
Although Sharp was more interested in suspense than actual shocks, there are a couple of notable instances of bloodletting. In the opening, when Prof. Zimmer uses a shovel to stake his corrupted daughter through her coffin, you see quite a bit of blood pooling up through the cracked wood. Tania also leaves some nasty bite-marks on Zimmer's wrist after their confrontation, and later, when Gerald has been captured and Ravna orders her to infect him with vampirism, she rips open his shirt and slashes a big, bleeding wound into his chest. However, Gerald manages to turn that against the vampires, as he slips one of his hands loose from their bindings and smears the blood into the image of a cross. Going back to Zimmer, after he's bitten, he uses the exact same method Van Helsing did to save himself in The Brides of Dracula: cauterizing the bites and dousing them with holy water. When he does this, you see a couple of shots of his wrist burning, and the film uses a slow-motion effect, perhaps to distract from how what you're seeing is obviously a fake hand.
Like The Phantom of the Opera, the climax and ending are where The Kiss of the Vampire all but falls apart. For one thing, there's no payoff to Zimmer's personal vendetta against Ravna, as the two of them never have a face-to-face confrontation like Van Helsing had with both Count Dracula and Baron Meinster. In fact, Ravna himself never mentions Zimmer or that he corrupted his daughter, never wondering why she hasn't yet risen or reacting to being told she's been staked, as if the whole thing left no impression on him whatsoever. What's more, Zimmer and Ravna are only in the same shot in the scene where the former bursts in to save Gerald and Marianne and, even then, there's never a moment where the two of them lock eyes or Ravna realizes Zimmer, an expert in the occult, has traced him to the area (they're never once onscreen together). Because of this, it would have been just the same if Zimmer had simply been a Van Helsing stand-in with no personal case against Ravna other than a hatred for evil and a desire to stamp it out.
The lack of a personal face-off could have been overlooked had Zimmer's use of the Corpus Diabolo Levitum ritual resulted in something truly awesome; instead, what happens is ridiculous both in concept and execution. That sucks because the idea of a ritual that can make evil destroy itself sounds cool, and it's actually a left over concept from The Brides of Dracula, as it was how Van Helsing was originally meant to defeat Baron Meinster (it was nixed because Peter Cushing didn't like the idea of Van Helsing delving into the occult arts in any way). There's a big buildup to the end result after Zimmer completes the ritual just as much as there is to the ritual itself, with a vibrating, droning sound that increases in pitch and lots of strong wind, but then, you see that the end result is a big swarm of vampire bats that encircle and break into the chateau, killing all of the vampires. Pretty lame, isn't it? Honestly, couldn't they have come up with something else, like maybe have the vampires suddenly become racked with pain and begin dying off, maybe with blood bleeding out of their various orifices? Okay, that latter part might not have flown with the censors but I think something like a more internal, literal approach to the concept of evil being forced to destroy itself would have been cooler.
And, of course, that leads us into the typical, poor-looking fake bats on strings that were prevalent in vampire movies around this time. Limited budget and special effects technology aside, these bats make those used in The Brides of Dracula and the later Scars of Dracula look like creations of Industrial Light & Magic. They're clearly just crude paper cutouts or pathetic rubber props, often with stiffly flapping wings, that are either being flown through the air via puppet controls or are badly matted into the scene (according to the IMDB trivia page, the rubber bats were actually borrowed from another source, rather than created by the Hammer prop department). They don't get much better in the close-ups of them attacking people, as they're just dead props that are barely moving, with the actors having to do all of the work. No matter how much they try to sell it, nothing can make these bats look good, and it's a shame, because there are a few good effects in the film, such as nice-looking model shots of the chateau earlier in the film, and the animated bats shown circling it in the long shot look acceptable enough. Admittedly, I haven't yet seen all of the vampire movies Hammer produced but I doubt their fake bat effects were ever any worse than this.
The movie opens on a funeral procession, with a couple of priests and several coffin-carrying pallbearers leading a short line of people to a freshly dug grave in a small, village cemetery. As the pallbearers lower the coffin down into the grave, a man dressed in black and wearing a hat appears on a nearby hilltop. A couple of women spot him, one of them commenting he's probably been drinking again, when he descends from the hill and walks up to the open grave, motioning for the onlookers to step back, while the one priest finishes reading a prayer. The priest sprinkles some holy water down into the grave, when the man, Prof. Zimmer, motions for him to be handed the small rod so he can do some sprinkling of his own. Once he finishes, and with obvious tears in his eyes, he hands the rod back to the priest. He then motions for the gravedigger to give him his shovel, and when he does, Zimmer, after a few moments of hesitation, plunges it down into the grave, the tip of the spade breaking through the coffin. The pained scream of a woman emits from the grave and, as Zimmer walks away, blood pools out of the hole in the wood. One of the female onlookers screams and everyone runs off, the priest crossing himself as he does so. The camera pans down to the coffin, the image of it dissolving to reveal the face of the vampire woman who has just been staked, as the credits roll.
Following the credits, there's a shot of a large chateau in the mountains, followed by a close-up of Dr. Ravna peering out a window using a telescope. He watches as a small motorcar heads down a country road and into a forested area. The car's motor backfires several times and then stops dead. Gerald Harcourt tells his new wife, Marianne, that he thinks they need some petrol, and when he checks the engine, he finds it's completely empty. He has no choice but to go ahead on foot and see if he can find anyone to help them. He asks Marianne to stay behind, as it'll be quicker if he goes by himself, and heads on up the road. Time passes and Marianne is still sitting in the car, waiting, when the wind suddenly picks up. She also begins to get spooked by the sounds of the surrounding woods, such as birds calling and dogs howling, and then notices the chateau in the nearby mountains; at that very moment, Ravna has her in the telescope's sights and walks away from it to get a clearer look with his own eyes through the window. As he watches, and with thunder rumbling, Marianne wanders away from the car and down the road ahead of her. When she stops at one point, a large tree branch snaps loose and nearly falls on her, sending her running in a panic. She runs a short distance, past a crossroads, and comes across Zimmer. He sternly tells her, "Stop running. Go back to your car!" He again insist she do so and Marianne complies, running back down the road. At that moment, Gerald appears, followed by a man leading a horse-drawn wagon. Marianne runs straight to him, telling him that she got scared.
The Harcourts are taken to the Grand Hotel, the carriage-driver towing their car and leaving out in front of the main gate. Gerald tells the man not to leave it there, as it might take up a space for other people who may stop by, but he tells him no one stops by anymore. He doesn't answer Gerald when he asks why, simply taking his fee and leaving. Gerald joins Marianne in the yard in front of the hotel, which is a rather gloomy-looking place, and they're both forced to run to the door when it suddenly starts raining. When Gerald rings the bell twice, a man inside yells, "Why can't you leave us alone?!", but when Gerald explains they want a room, the man, Bruno, opens the door and is surprised that they want to stay there. Realizing they're strangers, he becomes much more accommodating and allows them in. He goes outside to fetch their luggage, while his wife, Anna, signs them in. She asks them what room they would like, as all but one of them are vacant, and Gerald decides to go with one that's not very expensive, since they still have a long way to travel. Anna guides them up to the room in question, which, like the rest of the hotel, has the furniture totally covered in dusty sheets. She removes them and head downstairs to bring them some fresh linen, hot water, and tea. There, she meets with Bruno as he comes inside with their luggage and shows Anna that he's found a bunch of rise inside the car, meaning the couple are just married and are on their honeymoon. He decides they must make their stay as comfortable as possible, but Anna comes off as apathetic about it, to which he says, "Anna, try to forget. Please, just for tonight? For their sake."
Later that night, after the Harcourts have been settled in and are having their tea, Gerald hears the sound of hoof-beats outside and looks out the window to see a coach pull up. A large man jumps off from the back and hands Bruno a letter, before heading off. Gerald tells Marianne what he just saw, when Bruno comes into their room and hands Gerald the letter, saying it's for them, much to his surprise. Seeing that it's from a Dr. Ravna, Bruno clarifies he's the man who lives up in the chateau in the mountains. Reading the note, he finds that Ravna wishes them to dine with him that night, adding that he'll send his carriage to fetch them at 8:00. Though Marianne is somewhat hesitant, Bruno insists that they go, talking about what a gentleman Ravna is and that his table is one of the best in the country. With that, she agrees to go.
That night, the Harcourts are driven to the Ravna family chateau. Going through the gate and arriving at the front door, the large servant from before allows them in. They find the interior of the chateau to be far more welcoming than the rather creepy-looking outside, and mention as such aloud, when Dr. Ravna himself descends the stairs. Initially coming off as stern in regards to their feelings about the place, he immediately apologizes and greets them in a more friendly manner. As they talk, with Ravna telling them that he watched their car break down using his telescope, and was going to help them himself before Gerald took the initiative, a young woman dressed in red starts down the stairs but quickly hides before they can spot her. Ravna then takes them into the next room, where they're to be introduced to his son, Carl, who's been playing the piano since they first entered the chateau, and his daughter, Sabena; the woman takes the opportunity to sneak out the door. When Carl finishes playing, Marianne compliments him on his talent and they're formally introduced. The servant then comes in to serve them drinks. The film then cuts to the graveyard from the opening, where the woman in red approaches the grave of the girl whom Zimmer staked. Wondering why she has not risen and joined them yet, she digs at the soil, but soon uncovers the handle of the shovel, and realizes what happened. She attempts to pull the shovel free, when a hand grabs her wrist. It's Zimmer. Grabbing both of her wrists, he forces her to her feet, as she struggles to free herself from his grip. She then opens her mouth, revealing her vampire fangs, and Zimmer continues his struggle, only to be bitten on the wrist when he makes the mistake of momentarily hesitating. This forces him to let go and she leaves the graveyard, while he bandages his arm and leaves as well.
The woman returns to the chateau, just as the Ravnas and the Harcourts are coming back downstairs after their dinner. She hides along the side of the stairway as they head down into the foyer, Ravna explaining to his guests why he can never return to the city he was born. He then leads them back into the room with the piano, suggesting that Carl again play for Marianne; as she did before, the woman takes this opportunity to quickly head back upstairs. Ravna suggests Carl play something he composed himself and he does so, which proves to be a low, slow, somber-sounding piece of music. Carl appears to really get intensely into his playing, while Ravna serves drinks to both Marianne and Gerald. Meanwhile, Zimmer rushes back to his room at the hotel, grabs a glass flask of water, unwraps his bandaged hand, and pours the water over the bites, wincing from a feeling of pain that arises from it. He then takes the top off a small furnace, exposing the flames, and, taking a swig of the water, forcibly pushes his wrist into the flame. Fire soon engulfs his wrist, as he cringes and winces from the pain, before passing out and collapsing to the floor from it. Back at the chateau, Marianne becomes all the more entranced by Carl's playing, barely registering when Ravna refills her small glass. There's a long section without dialogue, as Carl's music becomes all the more eerie-sounding, and both he and Sabena notice the effect it's having on Marianne. At one point, Carl looks to his father, who silently nods in a sinister fashion. However, Gerald notices his wife is listing to one side, as if she's about to faint, and rushes to her, calling to her. Carl stops playing and, though Marianne asks him to continue, Ravna suggests it might be best to stop for now. Carl apologizes and walks away, while Gerald, figuring Marianne is just tired from the long day they've had, says they'd best leave. Ravna has Sabena ring for the carriage, while Marianne asks Carl to play for her again some time, which he says would be his pleasure. Ravna asks Gerald what they're going to do about their car and says they'd planned to make their way to a town that's thirty miles across the mountains. While seeing them out, Ravna says he'll send for their petrol himself, and they agree to stay at the hotel for a few more days. The couple gets into the carriage outside and is driven back to the hotel. Back inside, Sabena asks her father why he allowed the Harcourts to leave but Carl says they can't escape without any petrol. Ravna says that, indeed, they can't leave unless he allows it. (Incidentally, in one shot, you see a big white dog that's never seen ever again, making me wonder if he was supposed to be in the scene or if he was some crew-member's pet that wandered onto the set and they didn't spot him until they'd finished shooting. I personally find it weird that vampires would have a pet dog.)
When the Harcourts return to the hotel, Bruno has fallen asleep at the bar in the back while drinking with Zimmer. He's awakened when the couple ring the bell for him and he rushes to let them in. Back inside, they confirm what Bruno expected, that they had a very enjoyable evening and were charmed by Ravna. They don't get to talk long before Bruno hears Zimmer yelling at him, demanding more brandy, and he bids the Harcourts good night. On their way back to their room, the Harcourts overhear the sound of someone sobbing in the room at the end of the hall. Walking down there, they peek inside, past the slightly ajar door, and see Anna, sitting on the floor, cradling a blanket, and sobbing softly. She then reaches into an open cabinet next to her and pulls out a small collection of photos. Looking at them causes her to cry even more, and the Harcourts, deciding not to intrude on her grief any further, head on back to their room.
The next day, as it rains outside, and after she and Gerald have had breakfast with Bruno and Anna, during which they, like carriage driver, dodged the question of why they no longer get any patrons, Marianne, on a hunch after noticing the extra place at the table Anna had set, goes up to the room they saw her in the night before. Opening the cabinet, she finds a loose board in the bottom of it that she removes to find several items, such as a small, white Bible and a crucifix, as well as a corsage. She also removes the pictures Anna was looking at and opens the leather bundle up, when the door suddenly opens slowly. It turns out to simply be Gerald, and he joins his wife in looking at the pictures. One of them is of the young woman who sneaked in and out of the chateau the night before. Gerald removes the picture to find the words, "Tania, age fourteen," written behind it. They both note how much she looks like Anna, and wonder why she keeps the photos hidden and why she sets an extra place at the table. Hearing a door open in the hallway, Gerald, realizing it's Zimmer, goes to talk with him. He follows him downstairs, to the bar in the back, as he removes his coat and hat from the rack. Gerald tries to be friendly, but Zimmer is only interested in when he and Marianne are leaving, and seems happy when he says they're going in a day or two. Gerald then confronts him about what's going on with the hotel but Zimmer doesn't answer, simply saying, "I'd advise you to ask no questions of anyone in this region," before pushing past him. Gerald remarks, "Well, that puts me in my place." He heads back up to the front, when he hears the sound of a coach pulling up outside. Looking out the window, he sees it's Carl and Sabena, and heads outside to greet them. Carl disembarks and says they can't stay, but Gerald insists and heads inside to fetch Marianne. With no other choice, Carl and Sabena decide to go in, though they're concerned about the changing weather. In the lobby, after Marianne comes down, Carl tells Gerald that Ravna has sent for some petrol but it won't be there until Sunday. He and Sabena also invite them to attend a party Ravna is planning on holding Saturday night, and they also each offer to lend them a suit and dress for them. They then take them up on the offer, but before they can talk any further, Zimmer walks in, intoning, "Good morning. The weather seems to be improving. It's getting a little brighter, I think." Carl then grabs Sabena's hand and, excusing themselves, they rush out the door. They head straight for their carriage and, seeing that the sun is coming out, Carl tells their driver, "Drive on. Drive like the devil!", and they speed away, much to Gerald and Marianne's bewilderment.
Come the night of the party, Gerald and Marianne get dressed up in the clothes they were loaned, with Gerald looking very dapper in the tuxedo and Marianne positively ravishing in the red dress and cloak loaned to her by Sabena. She credits Anna with having made the dress fit her, but is surprised when Anna becomes emotional about it and cries. When they have a moment alone, Marianne asks Anna if she ever had a daughter, only for Anna to become distraught and ask why she would ask that. They hear the sound of the coach pulling up outside and Marianne and Gerald head out the door, where it waits. They're about to climb into the coach, when the horses suddenly rear and neigh upon being startled. Zimmer emerges from the darkness near them, clearly drunk, and slurs, "Madame, I beg of you, be careful... In God's name, be careful." Thinking he's simply a raving drunkard, the two of them climb up into the carriage and are carted off to the chateau, Zimmer staggering to the gates and watching them go. When they arrive at the chateau and go through the gates, the doors close behind them and lock by themselves. Inside, it's a masquerade party, where the men wear all sorts of strange masks, while the women merely wear simple black ones across their eyes. The guests are either eating and drinking in the foyer or dancing in the next room. Among the dancers are Carl and Sabena, who are then informed that the Harcourts have arrived and walk to the foyer to greet them. Carl, who's wearing a mask, gives them their own masks, with Gerald's being a distinctive red one with long, hanging whiskers. Donning their masks, Marianne decides she'd like to dance, though Gerald would prefer just to have some champagne. Carl takes Marianne into the next room, while Gerald stays in the foyer with Sabena. On the dance floor, Carl and Marianne dance number after number to the music being played by the orchestra, until they're the only ones who are on the floor, as everyone else is content to watch them.
Marianne soon becomes tired and needs a rest. She then wonders what became of Gerald and Carl asks the one servant to see that she gets something to eat, while he goes to look for Gerald. He walks to the next room and whispers something in one person's ear. Said person opens a chest containing a mask identical to the one that was given to Gerald and gives it to Carl, who switches masks. He walks back into the foyer and when Marianne, thinking he's Gerald, sees him, he motions for her to put down her plate of food and follow him. He leads her up the stairs, through the twisting corridors, not answering her questions about what's going on, and finally stops in front of a door that he knocks on and then opens. Marianne now figures he isn't Gerald and Carl grabs her arm and flings her into the room. She lands on the floor and looks back to see him remove his mask, revealing who he actually is. He then slams and locks the door before she can escape. Realizing the door is locked, she tries to find another way out in the back of the room, but finds she's completely trapped. She then hears what sounds like sobbing and clutched breaths coming from behind a small curtain. When she pulls it back, she sees Ravna, lying on a cushioned slab, his eyes open and looking straight ahead, with a streak of blood running down the left side of his mouth. She screams in horror and runs back to the door, desperately trying to get out, while downstairs, Gerald, who's now quite drunk, wonders where Marianne is and has Sabena join him in searching for her. Marianne is now in a crying heap in the corner of the door, when she turns and sees Ravna standing across from her. His vampire fangs visible behind his parted lips, he motions for her to come to him and then to the spot where he was lying earlier. Falling under his spell, Marianne rises to her feet and does as he silently tells her. She lies down on the cushioned slab and Ravna, after leaning over her and kissing her forehead, opens his mouth, brandishing his fangs, and descends down on her.
Still wondering where his wife is, Gerald is offered a "special" glass of champagne, which he takes. Drinking it, he then tries to go out the door, wondering if Marianne went outside, when he suddenly stumbles and nearly falls. Removing his mask, he mentions he doesn't feel well and sits down on the leather chair next to the door. Sabena leads him upstairs to where she says he can rest and, when they get to her bedroom, he collapses to the floor. Sabena has the large servant drag Gerald's body inside, while downstairs, the party abruptly ends. All the seats are removed, the decorations are taken down, and the guests remove their masks. Upstairs, Ravna drapes a white cloak around Marianne and leads her out of the room. In another room nearby, everyone else in the chateau gathers there, dressed in the same white robes and sit on the floor. Ravna appears at the front of the room and brings out Marianne, who's completely entranced and has two bite marks on the left side of her neck. He announces, "Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce a new disciple?"
Later that night, Gerald stumbles halfway down the stairs and stops, as he's still very dizzy and disoriented. As the blurriness of his eyes clears, he's perplexed at how the party has suddenly ended and there's no one there. Making his way down to the floor, and nearly falling, he comes face-to-face with a glaring Carl, who sternly asks what he wants. When he says he wants Marianne, Carl growls, "You come here, get drunk, have to sleep it off, and now you say you want someone called Marianne." Struck by his wording, Gerald is even more confused when Carl says he came by himself. He rings the bell for the servant, whom he tells to show Gerald out, and Gerald, now distraught and confused, pleads with the servant, asking him if he remembers Marianne. The servant, however, also says that Gerald came by himself. Gerald then asks Carl what's going on, but he has the servant drag him out the front door, warning him that they'll sic their dogs on him if he doesn't leave. He slams the door in Gerald's face and Gerald futilely pounds on it, before stumbling off the property, still dizzy and hung over. He makes his way to a country road and tries to flag down a passing carriage, but it roars right by him, knocking him to the ground. Turning over onto his back, he passes out, but is then discovered by Zimmer, who checks his pulse and then hoists him up, puts him over his shoulder, and carries him off.
Gerald awakens in his hotel room, lying on his bed, and, sitting up, calls for Marianne. Getting no answer, and still suffering from a hangover, he calls for Bruno, before putting on his shoes. He again yells for Bruno, having to do it a third time before he walks in. He asks him if Marianne has come back, only for him to deny her existence as well. Angered, Gerald grabs Bruno and shoves him against the wall, shaking him and yelling that he knows what he's talking about. Bruno, again, says he doesn't know, and Gerald drags him over to the wardrobe and opens it up, asking him whose clothes are those inside it. But, when Bruno merely stares inside, Gerald turns and sees that only his own clothes are in there. Searching through them and finding no trace of Marianne's clothes, he runs to drawers and searches them, again finding nothing but his own clothes. Agitated and emotionally drained, he asks what's become of her clothes, but gets no answer from Bruno, who simply walks out of the room, while he can only sit in a chair and intone, "Dear God!" Later, Gerald speaks with a policeman, but finds that he's unwilling to issue a warrant against Ravna and his family, as Gerald is a foreigner who's leveling charges against one of the most respected men in the community, as well as that he's taken a statement from Bruno, who says Gerald came alone. Gerald continues to insist that he did come with his wife and that all of her things have been removed from the room. Hitting upon something, he rushes to the front desk to look at the register, but the policeman tells him there's nothing there and he's right, as Marianne's signature is missing completely. With no one else to turn to, Gerald then goes to Zimmer, who tells him he knows Marianne does exist and that she's at the chateau. Relieved, Gerald is then given a drink by Zimmer, who proceeds to tell him about the nature of vampires, how they try to initiate others into their cults, and that his own daughter fell victim to them but he managed to save her. He then adds that the man who corrupted his daughter was Ravna, horrifying Gerald, who tries to rush out to save her. Zimmer stops him, telling him that Marianne will be safe until nightfall, when he will do what must be done. Gerald then becomes unbalanced and drowsy, with Zimmer admitting that the drink he gave him was drugged. He sits him down into a chair as he falls asleep, telling him he'll need all of his strength come nighttime.
Nightfall comes and Gerald awakens in Zimmer's dark room, completely alone. Finding no sign of the professor, he grabs a coat and runs outside, making his way to the chateau. Reaching the gate, he tries to force it open but it doesn't budge. The sound of him doing so gets the attention of a guard, who walks through the gate with a rifle, only for Gerald to jump down on him from above and knock him unconscious with a couple of whacks to the back of the head. When he gets to the chateau, he enters through a bedroom window and quickly silences the woman who's in bed and spots him. He recognizes her as Tania and asks her if she knows where Marianne is. When she says she does, Gerald asks her to take her to Marianne, saying that he'll protect her with his life. Tania complies and leads him out of the bedroom and up a small flight of stairs off to the left of her door. She leads him to a door, knocks on it, and opens it. She walks inside, briefly closes it, and then opens it back up, motioning for him to come in with her. When he walks in, though, it's revealed to be a trap, as Ravna is there. Telling him that Marianne is there and quite happy, he blocks a punch from Gerald and grabs his arm, holding it behind his back. Tania then opens the door for Sabena, Carl, and the large servant, the latter two of whom grab and restrain Carl, tying his hands behind his back. Ravna asks Sabena to bring Marianne to them, telling Gerald as he sits back down, "I will not say that she has not changed in any way, Mr. Harcourt. She has, as you might put it, 'grown up,' tasted the more sophisticated, more exotic fruits of... life... Furthermore, having glimpsed these new horizons, I very much doubt she would express any desire to return with you to England." Sabena then returns with Marianne, who enters the room and walks straight up to Ravna, ignoring Gerald. When Ravna asks if she wants to see Gerald, she says she only wants Ravna. She ignores Gerald's pleas to look away from Ravna, when Ravna asks her to prove that she doesn't love Gerald. She then walks to Gerald, stops, and spits on him, before walking back and sitting in Ravna's chair. That done, Ravna asks Tania to, "Initiate Mr. Harcourt into our society." Understanding what he means, Tania walks up to Gerald, rips open his shirt, and slashes his chest. Brandishing her fangs, she goes in for the bite, but Gerald, having gotten one of his hands loose, shoves her away, wrenches himself loose from the servant's grasp, and wipes the blood from his wounds into the shape of a cross, which Tania screams at the sight of. Ravna tells his servant to wipe the cross off but Gerald manages to escape him, when Zimmer comes through the door.
Gerald grabs a small stool and smacks the servant in the leg and head with it, and then grabs Marianne and runs with her out the door, Zimmer closing it behind them. The three of them rush through the house, the servant, whom Zimmer says they need to deal with, in hot pursuit. They rush out the door, just as the servant comes down the stairs and heads out there himself. Outside, he looks around for them, as Gerald hides behind a large, stone spire. Zimmer, who's hiding in some bushes, sees the servant staring at the spire and distracts him with a cough. When he turns around, Gerald manages to push the top part of the spire on top of him, hitting him on the head and killing him instantly. With that, Zimmer closes the chateau's front door and marks it with the image of a cross.
They bring Marianne back to the hotel and lay her on the bed in her and Gerald's room. Zimmer calls for Bruno, who tries to slip away in the hall and whom Zimmer has to literally pull into the room. He sits down at the desk and quickly writes a letter, giving it to Bruno and telling him to take it to Father Xavier. When Bruno hesitates, Zimmer immediately knows what the problem is: he's afraid of what Ravna will do to Tania. He then reveals that he learned she was at the chateau the night before, but when Zimmer asks him if he wants Marianne to suffer the same fate as Tania, Bruno gets the incentive to go. When he does, Zimmer has Gerald follow him back to his own room, where he tells him he's been planning a special ceremony that's to be performed on a full moon and when Capricorn is in conjunction with Saturn, both conditions of which are present that night. He has Gerald help him move a desk out of the way, describing the ceremony, Corpus Diabolo Levitum, as a way of forcing evil to destroy itself, and that he will use it to destroy the vampires he's trapped in the chateau with the crucifix symbols made from a distillation of garlic. Up in the chateau, Ravna's disciples are becoming frantic about being trapped there, and when Carl enters the ceremony room and says that his father is ordering them to remain calm, they all start yelling at him, demanding that Ravna come speak to them himself. On cue, he enters the room and the others demand he explain why they can't leave. He says that they're trapped and that those that have imprisoned them mean to destroy them. This almost causes a riot amongst the vampires, who all rush at Ravna, demanding he do something. He tells them that they took Marianne away because they didn't want to risk her life and so, she must be made to return to them.
Back at the hotel, while Marianne continues sleeping in the one room, Zimmer begins the ceremony by drawing a circle in chalk on the floor, leaving open a space to step through, and starts drawing on the circle's inner edges; at the same time, Ravna concentrates his power to force Marianne to return to him. Zimmer puts a large cross up to protect them during the ceremony and gathers together four necessary items: a sword, a ring, a vial of green liquid, and a horn. He takes a scroll and steps inside the circle, drawing shut the open space after he does, and begins reading an incantation from the scroll. Ravna, meanwhile, manages to get Marianne to awaken, and when Gerald slips out of the room, as Zimmer continues with the ceremony, and heads to check on his wife, he finds that she's gone. Bruno then arrives with Father Xavier and Gerald, knowing where Marianne is, has the priest follow him. Ravna tells his disciples that Marianne is on her way back to the chateau, and she's then shown walking through the woods towards it; however, Gerald and Father Xavier aren't far behind. In his room, Zimmer finishes the ceremony by chanting its name three times and declaring, "I conjure thee. In the name of the great god Alpha, in the name of the mighty Beelzebub, appear!" As soon as he finishes, a mighty wind blows through the room, flinging the door open, and violently flapping the lantern, garlic, and window curtain in the room in the air. The wind blows through the chateau as well, panicking the vampires, who clamor to get out, while outside, Gerald and Xavier catch up to Marianne and grab her. Zimmer walks to the window and looks outside, as the wind dies down, only to be replaced by a strange, distant, droning sound that quickly grows in pitch. Looking up, he says, "It worked." As they hold down Marianne, attempting to free her from her possession, Gerald and Xavier see that it worked as well, as an enormous swarm of bats is circling the chateau.
Inside the chateau, all the lights have gone out, and the vampires walk to the middle of their ceremony room, as the strange droning sound continues increasing in pitch and the bats flood in through the windows. There's no escape for the vampires, as the bats descend on them, landing on their clothes and biting at their necks, while outside, Xavier says a prayer over Marianne and makes the sign of the cross on her forehead. More bats come smashing in through the stained glass window at the front of the room and target the actual Ravna family. Ravna himself has one grab onto his left wrist and bite him in the neck, while Carl is cornered and gets one on his neck, Tania, who's on the floor, gets one on her leg, and Sabena is forced down to the floor. Both Ravna and Carl get bats on their faces, while Tania gets one on her chest and rolls over, yelling in pain. Ravna sinks to the floor, bats all over him, and the rest of his family suffer similar fates and eventually give out. Outside, Marianne is freed from her entrancement and recognizes Gerald, while inside the chateau, the bats finish feeding on the dead vampires and exit through the windows, the film ending on a shot of the massacred undead that litter the ceremony room.
Though I haven't mentioned him since we talked about Dracula, James Bernard was hardly lazing around in the years since that film, as he scored other notable films for Hammer like The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Stranglers of Bombay, The Terror of the Tongs, and The Damned. For The Kiss of the Vampire, besides doing his usual loud, bombastic action music (my favorite is the distinctive, fast-paced piece for the scene where Gerald and Zimmer rescue Marianne from the chateau), overbearing creeping horror tunes, and soft, sympathy-inducing pieces for the sadder scenes, Bernard also creates a very memorable and, in some ways, downright iconic piano theme called The Vampire Rhapsody. Acting both as part of the score and part of the movie's actual context, as Carl plays it on the piano, it's a hypnotic, waltz-like piece of music that's the ideal leitmotif for vampires, as it captures their eerie, otherworldly, and sensual quality all at once. Besides being played over the opening credits, its most significant uses are when Marianne becomes more and more entranced by it when Carl plays it and when Ravna mesmerizes her, wherein it's played in a very subtle, soft version that's right on the cusp of being undetectable. Make no mistake, it's the music from this film that will stick with you the most.
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