Product Context and Media Language
The Kiss of the Vampire was produced by Hammer Film Productions in 1963, intended as a sequel to their successful Dracula franchise. This period marked the beginning of the "swinging sixties" and saw significant cultural and political events unfold globally.
Cultural Context
The 1960s audience was well-versed in the codes and conventions of "monster movie" film posters. These typically included specific composition styles, font choices, and representations of monsters and their victims.
Highlight: The film's release coincided with the early stages of 'Beatlemania', the assassination of JFK, and the Soviet Union launching the first woman into space.
Codes and Conventions
The poster for Kiss of the Vampire employs several genre-specific elements:
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The title font creates connotations linked to the vampire film genre, with its 'wooden' styling and blood-dripping 'fang' on the letter V.
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The use of a 'painted' image is conventional for the period, but the color aspect (highlighted by the text "In Eastman Color") suggests a modern retelling of an old story.
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The color palette reinforces the film's dark, scary conventions, with red highlights drawing attention to key horror elements like bats, the vampire, and blood.
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The listing of stars follows the convention of placing more highly paid male actors first and in order of fame.
Example: Clifford Evans, listed first among the stars, had previously starred in Hammer's 1961 hit "Curse of the Werewolf".
Barthes' Semiotics
The poster can be analyzed using Roland Barthes' semiotic codes:
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Hermeneutic Code: Suspense is created through enigmas surrounding the relationship between the male and female vampires and the fate of their victims.
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Semantic Code: Images of bats are conventionally associated with vampirism and horror.
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Symbolic Code: Horror, darkness, and fear are reinforced through signifiers like the moon and the male victim's 'submissive sacrifice' gesture.
Lévi-Strauss' Structuralism
Claude Lévi-Strauss's concept of binary oppositions can be applied to the contrasting representations of vampires and their victims, as well as the juxtaposition of "kiss" and "vampire" in the title.
Vocabulary: Binary oppositions - A structuralist theory that suggests meaning is created through the contrast between two opposing concepts.
