Kissed (2020) Characters, Setting & Themes Explained

The film unfolds primarily in a funeral home and mortuary, where the protagonist works. Additional settings include a college campus where she studies biology, a dim basement apartment, and a car wash. These locations create an intimate, claustrophobic world that straddles the line between life and death.

• funeral home
• mortuary
• setting
• locations

The funeral home serves as both Sandra's workplace and the stage for her necrophilic rituals. It represents a space where death is processed and made presentable, allowing the protagonist to interact with bodies in a socially sanctioned context while pursuing her own darkest impulses.

• funeral home
• rituals
• death
• sandra

The college setting provides Sandra with a legitimate scientific framework, biology, that contrasts with her private rituals. It represents the living world of academia and normalcy that she inhabits alongside her darker activities, highlighting the duality of her existence.

• college
• biology
• education
• sandra

The film explores how Sandra's fixation on dead bodies becomes a dangerous ritual and identity. Death functions not merely as a subject of study but as an alluring substitute for human connection, driving her actions and ultimately leading to tragic consequences.

• death
• obsession
• necrophilia
• identity

Sandra's relationship with Matt illustrates the tension between desire for the living and her necrophilic fascination. The film questions whether genuine love can coexist with an attraction to death, ultimately showing the devastating price paid when these forces collide.

• love
• matt
• death
• relationship
• desire

Kissed confronts social and moral taboos surrounding the body and death, questioning what society considers acceptable desire. It explores how characters navigate or cross boundaries, and the consequences that follow when those lines are irrevocably crossed.

• taboo
• boundaries
• desire
• society
• morals

The Body refers to Aurora Persischetti, a deceased figure who becomes central to Sandra's necrophilic rituals. She represents the ultimate object of Sandra's fixation and serves as a catalyst for the protagonist's obsessive behaviors and emotional turmoil.

• aurora persischetti
• the body
• necrophilia
• sandra

Norman, portrayed by James Warfield, represents another facet of the story's interaction between the living and the dead. His presence signals the broader world beyond Sandra's immediate rituals, adding another dimension to the film's exploration of death and human connection.

• norman
• james warfield
• character
• living dead

The film maintains a consistently dark tone driven by its central theme of necrophilia. The atmosphere is eerie and claustrophobic, with moody backdrops emphasizing the intimate, almost routine nature of death. This creates a pervasive sense of unease throughout the narrative.

• tone
• atmosphere
• dark
• horror
• mood

Sandra is a coroner whose lifelong obsession with death shapes her entire identity. She navigates between legitimate work in the funeral home and her disturbing private rituals, creating a character defined by isolation, obsession, and the tragic consequences of her inability to connect with the living.

• sandra
• protagonist
• obsession
• coroner
• identity

Kissed creates a world where death feels intimate and almost routine, blurring the boundaries between the living and the dead. The spaces, from funeral parlors to basement apartments, work together to establish an unsettling universe where the protagonist's dark desires can flourish.

• world
• setting
• death
• atmosphere
• universe