Kiss of the vampire

The poster shows obvious signs that it is a vampire horror. The iconography of the blood, as well as the red and black colour scheme are clear tropes of the horror genre. The imagery of the dying background, large castle in the distance, and the bats, which have been demonised by Hollywood, also tie in with the vampire theme, and the audience at the time definitely would have recognised them as such. The biggest sign on the poster is the title containing the word "vampire". The title also contains the word "kiss", which shows that there is a sexual nature to the movie. To the left is a man dressed in very traditional attire and his teeth are bare, showing the audience clearly that he is the vampire. He is holding a woman in his arm. She is kneeling beside him with her head swung back and mouth open. She is clearly submissive to him and presented as a victim. The man is shown having the dominance between them in a way typical of the time. The other man and woman however are the opposite. This time, it is the man that is kneeling and at the mercy of the woman. The woman, while still sexualised, stands above the man, a protective hand on his shoulder as she fights off bats. She completely defies the victim trope, instead acting as a protector and having the most aggressive facial expression and body language out of the four. Even the vampire looks frightened and seems to be shying away from the bats rather than fighting back.



The movie was released in 1963. This was at the dawn of the second wave of feminism, where the dynamic between men and women was being challenged and the power balance was changing. As the poster of a horror movie, the poster must encompass some level of fear. In this poster, you could argue that, as a movie being targeted at a male audience, the fear comes from the central woman having power over a man. For most men at the time, this was a fear that came with the feminist movement.