Marketing (KOTV)

• Film poster


  Promotional material for a film
• When was KOTV released

  1963
• Focus areas

  • Media language
  • Representation
  • Media contexts
• Produced by Hammer Film Productions and distributed by J. Arthur Rank and Universal, Kiss of the Vampire was intended to be the second sequel to 1958's Dracala, although the film's script actually makes no reference to Stoker's character
• Hammer had, by 1963, success with other 'monster movie franchises such as The Mummy and Frankenstein
• Distributers Universal also saw early success with films in this genre
• 1963 Saw the early stages of Beatlemania and the so-called 'swinging sixties', the assassination of JFK and the Soviet Union launching the first woman into space1963
• Cultural context

  The 1960s audience for this advert could be assumed to be familiar with the codes and conventions of 'monster movie' film posters
• Interesting intertexts for comparative study

  • The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)
  • Blood From The Mummy's Tomb (1971)
• Codes and conventions, and how media language influences meaning

  • Capitalised, serif font of the title creates connotations linked to the vampire film genre
  • Use of a 'painted' main image is highly conventional of films of the period
  • Gloomy grey, black and brown colour palette reinforces the film's dark, scary conventions
  • Red highlight colour draws attention to the attacking bats, the vampire and the blood
• Semiotics- Roland Barthes

  • Suspense is created through the enigmas surrounding the connoted relationship between the male and female vampires and the fate of their two victims (Barthes' Hermeneutic Code)
  • Barthes' Semantic Code could be applied to images of the bats and their conventional association with vampirism and horror in general
  • The Symbolic Codes (Barthes) of horror, darkness and fear are more widely reinforced through signifiers such as the moon and the male victim's 'submissive sacrifice' gesture code
• Structuralism-Claude Lévi-Strauss

  The idea that texts are constructed through the use of binary oppositions could be applied to the opposing representations of the vampires and their victims, and the romantic connotations of "kiss" opposed in the film's title to the stereotypical "vampire" monster
• Political and social contexts

  The 1960s is often seen as the start of women's sexual liberation, aided by events such as the introduction of the contraceptive pill in 1960. More women than ever were entering the paid workforce and sixties feminists were campaigning for equal pay, an end to sexual harassment and more equality between men and women in wider society
• Representation

  Older stereotypes of women as passive victims of men and more modern 'male fears of women challenging male dominance could both be seen to be encoded in this film poster
• How representations are constructed through processes of selection and combination

  • Women wear pale dresses made of light materials to reinforce their femininity
  • Gesture code of the woman on the left is that of the stereotypical passive victim
  • Gesture codes of the second woman are more aggressive, and the submissive pose of her male 'victim' represent her in a non-stereotypically dominant way
  • The vampire himself seems uncharacteristically fearful in his gesture codes
• Stuart Hall's theory of representation


  The images of a castle, bats, the vampire's cape and dripping blood form part of the "shared conceptual road map" that give meaning to the "world" of the poster
• David Gauntlett's theory of identity


  The female vampire acts as a role model for women struggling against male oppression or desperate to be seen as the equals of men
• Liesbet Van Zoonen's feminist theory


  By assuming this 'co-antagonist' role, the female vampire is perhaps contributing to social change by representing women in non-traditional roles, though the passive female victim does reinforce these
• The KOTV poster uses marks of quality in the universal symbol, the star billing and the 'Hammer film production' label to increase the appeal to the audience at that time
• The gesture codes of the woman connote Rosie the riveter and women's empowerment (women's sexual revolution) (Cultural competence)
• Women's empowerment shown through the vampires arm going up to protect himself from the woman - reflects society at that time