Kiss of the Damned: Sex and death

Posted by Jordon Constantino February 23, 2022

Kiss of the Damned: Sex and death

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdysPI9OreU

Kiss of the Damned by Xan Cassavetes released in 2012 is mysterious and captivating with surprises you don’t see coming. The Horror/ Romance film truly encapsulates both labels with the love affair of Djuna (Joséphine de La Baume) the vampire mistress and Paolo (Milo Ventimiglia) a screenwriter staying in Djuna’s hometown of Connecticut, and the gory deaths by not only Djuna’s sister, and fellow Vampire, Mimi (Roxane Mesquida) but also – plot twist / Spoiler – Djuna herself. The slow build to the adventure that ensues when Mimi shows up to Djuna’s summer house, owned actually by Xenia (Anna Mouglalis) a leader in the vampire community leads to a wild ride and a slew of deaths.

Sex and horror are often intertwined, and this film is no exception. The characters are filled with lust and the film takes these scenes with stride. We first see the display of need when Paolo finds himself occupied with Djuna throughout the night which leads him to her summerhouse. Things get intense and intimate but suddenly Djuna ends the affair abruptly pushing Paolo away. When he tries to protest, she sends him out of the house, insisting he leave. Paolo seems unable to resist however as we see him return to the house the next night and again the night after. Finally, Djuna tries to explain that he cannot have her as she reveals her identity. He does not believe her however, which leads her to show him. She demands Paolo tie her to the bed while she turns into her vampire state. Djuna implies that if she gets too aroused, she will hurt him, like she did when he kissed her through the door the first night he returned to the house trying to persuade her to become involved. It is here we begin to see the parallel between the sex and the danger of the vampires, and this theme carries through the whole movie. Disregarding her warnings, he makes love with her. The parallel between intimacy and death gets stronger as Djuna bites Paolo’s neck making him both climax, and a vampire.

Djuna and Paolo are enjoying their newfound love and life together, even having him move his things into the summerhouse, when Mimi, Djuna’s sister shows up after she gruesomely murders her date, forcing her to relocate. The killing and drinking of human’s blood are highly forbidden by Xenia’s vampire community, where the vampires are expected to survive off animal blood, and synthetic blood. This is the first major sign that Mimi brings trouble, but not the last. Djuna tries to protest having Mimi in the house, insisting she’s unstable and “out of touch with reality” but Xenia insists Mimi is trying to live a new life. The girls begin fighting immediately making Djuna upset and wary of Mimi and the potential trouble she brings with her.

Viewers get the feeling of Mimi as the villain through the score, her manipulative ways, her risqué dress and overt sexual behavior. Barbara Creed’s idea of the monstrous feminine as overly sexual is a key feature of this movie as sex is how Mimi lures her victims in, biting them at their weakest point during their sexual encounter, however brief. Mimi brings chaos, leaving death and immorality in her path as she blazes through the week she stays at the summerhouse. Picking fights with Djuna and Paolo, killing on both her trip to the city and at the house where she traps a couple, and at one point even luring Paolo into an affair, seemingly just to frustrate and hurt her sister. As we learned from Djuna at the beginning of the film, ignoring the need to “hunt” can leave a vampire in pain. But Mimi takes this “need” to a new level, it is implied she hunts for the thrill of it, simply as a means of fun. Again, the ties between sex and slaughter gets tighter and tighter. But Mimi isn’t the only one feeding the “need to hunt”.

Paolo’s agent Ben, (Michael Rapaport) worried by the lack of contact between him and Paolo turns up in Connecticut looking for both Paolo and his work. When he finds Paolo at the summerhouse, he finds himself incapacitated to drive, caused by his overindulgence of alcohol and drugs. During dinner we see a cinematic close shot of Ben’s neck, then right after Djuna’s lips. In the scene before, both Djuna and Paolo had claimed they didn’t need to fuel their desire to “hunt”, but here we see Djuna struggling with her urges as she did before, when her desire got so strong the couple had to head into the forest surrounding the house for release. When Ben requests to spend the night at the house to avoid another DUI, Paolo hesitates, but eventually Djuna extends a welcome to stay the night. As the couple sleeps however, we see Ben reading scripts in the bed, suddenly terrified, blood spilling from his neck. At first, we assume Mimi has taken yet another life, but Ben’s death is intermittently interrupted by clips of Djuna in bed, moving around in what seems to be a dream state. She awakes abruptly the next day rushing to Ben’s room only to find his wallet on the ottoman, and a bloody button up shirt under the bed. The symbolism of a sexually charged dream is apparent as now we realize Djuna herself has done the killing.

At the summerhouse there is a maid, Irene (Ching Vades-Aran) who due to a rare blood condition is not a desire for the vampires. Throughout the film we see Irene clean not only fix the beds and vacuum the floors but also clean blood off the floor and walls. At one point Irene overhears Djuna begging to Xenia to remove Mimi from the house as she has been killing humans and is out of control. Irene is a quiet character, uninvolved in most of the film, but it is clear she takes good care of not only the house but Djuna as well. Aware of the guests’ identities she seems almost protective, of Djuna and eventually even Paolo. We see the ultimate example of this at the end of the film. Mimi, on the way back to the house, after manipulating Xenia into feeding on a virgin as means to blackmail her, swerves to avoid a deer and crashes the car, flipping it over in the process. The irony in Mimi swerving for a deer, showing it respect, when earlier she taunted Paolo for burying an animal they had feasted on as means of showing it respect is clear. The one act of goodness she chooses to perform results in a trauma. As she climbs out the car limping her way up the driveway, we see the sun start to rise. In this scene it’s Mimi versus the sun and halfway to the house Mimi’s skin starts burning and melting off her. As she’s screaming in pain, skin burning off, Irene the housekeeper pulls into the driveway. Here we see the stand-off of Mimi, the monstrous femme, begging for help from Irene, the films best display of modesty, essentially the “good guy”. As Mimi begs for help, arms outstretched, Irene lights her cigarette, watching Mimi melt away. The next scene starts with a large black trash bag, hinting at Irene’s involvement as the housekeeper. At the end of the film Djuna and Paolo are packed, ready to move to a house Paolo has arranged for them. We see Djuna thank Irene for “taking care of things” and the camera shifts to the black trash bag tipping over. In the end Irene, the hero, as won, defeating Mimi as the “monster” allowing Djuna and Paolo to move on, forgoing the mess Mimi has left behind.

Women involved in Kiss of the Damned

1. Alexandra “Xan” Cassavetes – Director

2. Joséphine de La Baume – Cast

3. Roxane Mesquida – Cast

4. Roxane Mesquida – Cast

5. Anna Mouglalis - Cast

6. Ashley Munns - Cast

7. Ching Valdes-Aran - Cast

8. Alexia Landeau - Cast

9. Riley Keough - Cast

10. Tiarnie Coupland - Cast

11. Olivia Lauletta - Cast