Vampire Chic: A Dark Fate for Juliet in "With A Kiss I Die"

With A Kiss I Die
written and directed by Ronnie Khalil
starring Ella Kweku, Paige Emerson, George Kopsidas, Michael Angels, Ioannis Papazisis

A unique and new independent film is available for viewing this week. Called With A Kiss I Die, it uses Shakespeare's tragic tale of timeless love, "Romeo And Juliet," and turns it into an interracial lesbian vampire love story.

For real.

While that might seem really out there, the film has its own comments to make about what it means to be in love with another person, about whether each of us only has one great love in a lifetime, about how love is love, and about what sacrifices we're willing to make for that love.

With A Kiss I Die was written and directed by Ronnie Khalil, best known as an Arab-American stand-up comic in both the Middle East and the U.S. And as Juliet Capulet, the film stars a woman of color, stunning newcomer Ella Kweku, a former model and erstwhile musician born in The Canary Islands of Spain who calls Los Angeles home.

In Khalil's reimagining of the Shakespeare legend, Juliet is still alive after 800 years and is being transformed – against her will – into a vampire. Filmed in the gorgeous Greek islands of Mykonos and Santorini, With A Kiss I Die shows a Juliet who no longer wishes to live as she continues to mourn the death of her Romeo. Despondent over being stolen from their tomb in Verona and revived as one of the living dead by a powerful Greek vampire named Father, Juliet is in transition from light to dark. She can experience daylight and a full range of emotions while subsisting on the blood of a willing human companion, but once she drinks the blood of a victim she kills herself she will become a true vampire who can only walk at night. Juliet feels trapped and hopeless as Father puts pressure on her to take this final step.

When Juliet meets a troubled American tourist (Paige Emerson) and they develop intense feelings for one another, a jealous Father threatens the girl's life. Juliet makes a final choice to free them both from Father’s wrath, a decision that echoes her tragic ending with Romeo centuries earlier.

With A Kiss I Die is just the latest in a long string of vampire film narratives that have broken loose from the original Dracula legend. The fascination with being immortal is a major part of this fantasy, as is the darkly romantic idea that while a vampire may kill and ingest the blood of many human victims, which is a macabre horror, he or she carefully chooses that special someone to initiate into the ranks of vampiredom and is then responsible for the initiate's life and wellbeing. It is a twisted love story, a ghoulish betrothal, an induction into a supernatural fraternity from which one can never escape.

Most of the Dracula remakes romanticize Dracula's obsession with Lucy and other potential "brides." That idea is why the 1979 reboot cast sexy thespian Frank Langella as Dracula, while Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1992 made Gary Oldham a man of mystery whose alter ego was an ancient monster. Even in the little-seen Dracula 2000, Dracula is none other than Gerard Butler (they also try to make the case that Dracula is really Judas Iscariot, cursed for all time). Sexy vampires were also central to Quentin Tarantino's 1996 From Dusk Till Dawn, while Eddie Murphy took on the legend for1995's Vampire in Brooklyn. Wesley Snipes became a half-vampire avenger in the Blade series.

We also imagine that because they live through many ages they are prone to loneliness. This is dealt with at length in 1994's Interview With The Vampire, where 200-year-old vampire Louis (Brad Pitt) tries for centuries to find meaning and connection in his vampire life. Poor vampires, doomed to kill and wander the earth for an eternity. Love is the only redeeming quality left to them, even when it almost always ends in tragedy. Like the immortal creatures themselves, vampire narratives just won't die.

With A Kiss I Die is available on streaming platforms.