3.5 out of 5

“Kissed” is a bizarre but on-brand Canadian film, with Molly Parker (from Global TV’s “Doc”) in her first major appearance. It’s a drama that skews closer to video art, with a striking premise that eventually plays second-fiddle to a middling obsession plot.

But damned if it exists at all: a straight-faced movie about necrophilia. Jörg Buttgereit’s “Nekromantik” this is not – though both films share the same fleeting duration of just over an hour: an unheard-of runtime in today’s feature market. Plenty for director Lynne Stopkewich to poke her head in, make her points, and leave, in – fingers-crossed – the most memorable way possible.

The prologue is laudable: a snapshot of heroine Sandra’s youth & learned Wiccanness, growing from a respect for the dead into intimacy. Getting these details about the protagonist so early made me emotionally invested in the unorthodox subject matter – as did Parker’s fearless, Genie award winning performance as the adult Sandra (Genies are the Canadian Oscars, now called the “Canadian Screen Awards”).

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