Kiss Of The Vampire 1963 - Media Set Product 3

Kiss Of The Vampire 1963

• We can see it fits into the genre of horror as it includes some generic paradigms of it such as including bats, fog, blood, fangs, themes of death, night and a full moon.
• The lexis of 'vampire' further suggests the genre of horror. However, Steve Neale's theories around genre should conform to some generic paradigms but should subvert some of these. That's why it might be a generic hybridity with romance as it includes the lexis 'kiss'. 
• Claude Levi-Strauss' binary oppositions would be dead or alive with the front characters, this would be a contradiction with vampires. Stuart Hall's representation theory, heterosexual, white, men and women. We know the main protagonist may be the man in the middle because he is represented as being the strongest as he is alive and is defending himself from the bats attacking where as the woman in the centre is weaker because stereotypically, women are seen as weak and she is being bitten by a bat. However, this subverts stereotypes as well because she is seen as a strong main character as she is still alive.
• The narrative that's being suggested is that bats will be attacking the characters at some point, this is a proairetic code to the audience. Tzevtan Todorov's narratology suggests the conflict will involve the characters running away (possibly from vampires) as the disruption of the equilibrium.
• The hermeneutic code, the use of red connotes danger and passion, this fits in with the generic hybridity of horror and romance. 
• Another hermeneutic code is the use of a range of actions, which makes the audience wonder what is going on and what is going to happen in the film.
• Z-line, we see the title of the film, the characters we then see 'In Eastman Color' (In the 50s films started to be produced in colour), then the names of actors and other people who worked on the film.
• The font used on the film title is serif, it also looks wooden-like and angular. It looks like a vang with the ‘V’ with blood dripping off the letter.
• The way the women are dressed on this poster is quite provocative conforms to the male-gaze, this might appeal to heterosexual men.
• The man in the middle might be a vampire by the way he is dressed is usually what we expect to see. 
• The film poster is illustrated, common for that time period.
• The character archetypes are that the two alive characters are the protagonists, the woman who the audience may not know whether she's dead or alive might be the princess as she is represented as weak and the man holding her might be the hero.
  

Product Context

• It is produced by Hammer Film Productions.
• Distributed by J. Arthur Rank and Universal.
• 'Kiss Of The Vampire' was meant to be a sequel to Dracula, however it didn't make any reference or intertextual reference to the film and Stoker's character.
• Hammer in 1963 had great success in these 'monster movies' and is why Universal started to produce these films.
• The historical context at the time of the film's release was the beginning of 'swinging sixties' and 'Beatlemania'. It was also a time of the JFK assassination and the Soviet Union launching the first woman into space.