Stephen Redding is a successful reality television producer with a big house in the hills and a trophy boyfriend, Dusty Young. But at Stephen's birthday party, Dusty discovers he has been having an affair with another man, Craigery. Humiliated, Dusty leaves the party, walks down to a convenience store. Stephen follows; trying to explain the affair is over, but out of nowhere—Dusty sees a flash—and blacks out.
When he comes to, Dusty learns Stephen was murdered and he's the prime suspect. LAPD Detectives Annette Riley and Noah Santos question him. But Dusty cannot remember what happened. However, West Hollywood is filled with suspects: an unstable lawyer, a couples’ therapist, a jealous ex, a sketchy best friend, a resentful lesbian couple, and a drag queen hypnotist.
With the police closing in, he must remember what happened, put the pieces of the puzzle together, regardless where the truth leads, even if it means he did kill Stephen.
Initial funding for Kiss Me, Kill Me came through a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, managed by producers Casper Andreas and David Michael Barrett. The successful campaign ran from October 6 to November 5, 2014, with 909 backers from all over the world. In the campaign, Andreas and Barrett explain the necessity for crowdsourcing as a viable means for producing LGBT content. They also credit their love of Alfred Hitchcock- and Agatha Christie-style murder mysteries as the inspiration for this film. Production began on January 7, 2015, for a 17-day shoot, predominantly in West Hollywood, California, where the film is set. The picture was shot on the Epic Red Dragon Camera by cinematographer, Rainer Lipski, edited by Andrew Gust, and original soundtrack was composed by Jonathan Dinerstein. Fredrik Malmberg, best known for producing the Conan the Barbarian reboot, is the film's executive producer. The Saul Bass-inspired animated opening titles sequence was created by graphic artist Scott McPherson. The film's taglines are "West Hollywood Is Murder" and "Coming Soon... with a BANG!"
Best Cinematography (Rainer Lipski), 2016 FilmOut San Diego
Best Music/Soundtrack (Jonathan Dinerstein), 2016 FilmOut San Diego
Distribution
Kiss Me, Kill Me was released on DVD and Video on Demand through Embrem Entertainment on December 7, 2016. It is available to buy or stream on Amazon.com, iTunes, Vimeo, Google Play and other platforms.