Kissing Darkness – review

Director: James Townsend

Release date: 2014

Contains spoilers

When it comes to gay interest vampire movies it seems that for every brilliant film, such as Vamperifica or Bite Marks, we then have to have a film like this.

To be fair, it might not be the film makers’ fault (entirely). Whilst the plot’s narrative is fairly rubbish and the acting overtly camp (especially with one character), my research indicates that this is a butchered edit of the film and, indeed, the main actress isn’t even credited in film or on IMDb. However, knowing that doesn’t make the film any better.

the guys arrive

So it starts with a car full of guys going to a cabin in the woods. Vlad (Nick Airus) is the token straight guy but the cabin belongs to his parents. He is roommates with Brett (Ronnie Kroell), who has brought his new boyfriend Jonathan (Sean Paul Lockhart). Also there is Ashton (Daniel Berilla) who is missing his boyfriend Keith (Griffin Marc) and Skylar (Kyle Blitch). Skylar is the overtly camp member of the group and Blitch’s performance is far too over the top and vacillates between honestly annoying to truly comedic. It's a shame because had he balanced it properly he would have lifted the film up a considerable notch.

drink of me

So there are tensions between Jonathan and Vlad, who seem to dislike each other (with a suspicion that Vlad is in the closet). Booze breaks some of the hostility down and the guys play Ouija with Vlad telling the story of a woman – Malice (I believe Alexandra Fulton) – who caught her husband-to-be with her best friend and killed them both, dedicating the murder to Satan and drinking blood… it isn’t a legend and the Ouija game summons her forth.

Jonathan fanged

Jonathan is the first to be affected with Malice dominating his mind and possessing him at one point. He (and she) turn attention to Vlad and slowly the boys are corrupted and vampirised. We have standard vampirism and vampiric possession but we don’t really have much of a plot. There is a twist at the end that made no sense and there are bits that don’t gel and I suspect that’s because key scenes are on the cutting room floor.

Kyle Blitch trowels on the camp

The sound doesn’t help, with dialogue lost in the mix at times. Generally the acting is amateurish. There isn’t really much more to say about this one. A proper edit could have helped but I suspect not too much. 3 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.