Countess Dracula

After discovering that she can regain youth and beauty by bathing in the blood of maidens, an aged Countess (Ingrid Pitt) courts a handsome young cavalry officer, but after she learns that the sanguineous youthifying is temporary, the body count begins to rise. The film is one of Hammer Films' more 'adult' horrors, with less emphasis on the 'monster' (in this case just a murderous old woman obsessed with regaining her youth) and more on the dread surrounding her. Much of the lurid film is about sexual relations, including the strange 'four-sided triangle', in which an older man (Nigel Green) desires the mature countess while the young officer (Sandor Elès) lusts after her youthful incarnation. There is some gratuitous nudity thrown in for good measure but not a lot of overt gruesomeness (despite the premise). The story is based on the legend of Elizabeth Báthory, a real-life 16th century Hungarian noblewoman rumoured to have depraved tastes for torture and who allegedly bathed in the blood of virgins to maintain her beauty (the 'Dracula' in the film's title is more about marketing than about history, legend, or plot). Most of the script and acting (especially by Pitt when she is portraying the 'young' countess) is rudimentary but the production values are pretty good and the 'aging/ugly' makeup is effective (if sometimes inconsistent). In the end, I found the film watchable (and seemingly more than the sum of its parts) and the final scenes are quite good (although they may be a letdown for viewers expecting some kind of bloody dénouement). Not among of the best of Hammer's extensive horror output but at least a bit different from the Lee/Cushing canon (despite the derivative and misleading title).

The tale of Countess Bathory who, horrified by her own ageing, discovers taking a bath in a virgin's blood will restore her lost youth and get her noticed by dashing Sandor Eles. Fortunately for the countess, her estate positively heaves with buxom maidens. Director Peter Sasdy may have let the brilliant Ingrid Pitt run a little wilder amongst the drab sets with the roles of Bathory young and old, but her joy at hamming it up helps place this as one of the better later Hammer productions. Nigel Green and Maurice Denham give twitching support.

In 1610 the widowed Countess Erzsebet (Elizabeth) Báthory, a member of one of Hungary's most illustrious noble families, was accused and convicted of the murder of several hundred young women. Because of her noble status she was not executed but was imprisoned in a room in her family home until her death four years later. After her death the legend grew up that she had killed the girls because she believed that bathing in their blood would restore her youth, although this was not an accusation made against her at her trial.

"Countess Dracula" is a fictionalised version of her story. Here she is known as "Countess Elisabeth Nádasdy"; Nádasdy was indeed the family name of Báthory's husband, but she never used it. (Because her family were Counts and her husband only a Baron, Hungarian custom required him to use his wife's surname after marriage). The film was made by Hammer, a British studio specialising in sensational horror movies, so in this version the legend surrounding the Countess is true; she does murder young virgins to bathe in their blood, and doing so does have the effect of restoring her youthful beauty, although only temporarily, so she is always in search of fresh victims. The girls have to be virgins; when the Countess kills the local prostitute, her blood has no effect.

The rejuvenated Countess passes herself off as her own daughter Ilona; the real Ilona has spent most of her life in Vienna, so nobody at the castle knows what she looks like. When Ilona returns to Hungary, her mother has her kidnapped and held prisoner in a cottage on the estate to ensure that her deception is not unmasked. Eventually, however, people, especially the castle librarian Fabio, who has a knowledge of occult lore, begin to grow suspicious. (Although the Countess is based on a real person, most of the other characters, including Ilona and Fabio, are fictitious).

One thing that nobody, not even Fabio, seems worried about is the fact that even in her younger form the Countess has the appearance of a woman in her thirties rather than the teenager Ilona is said to be. This is because she is played by Ingrid Pitt, who would have been 34 at the time, but in my opinion it was a wise move to cast a somewhat older woman in the part. Some Hammer films were spoilt by casting ravishingly beautiful but talentless young girls in key roles, such as Yutte Stensgaard in "Lust for a Vampire" or Mary and Madeleine Collinson in "Twins of Evil". Pitt, however, managed to combine her good looks with acting ability.

This is perhaps not Pitt's best performance for Hammer; that must be "The Vampire Lovers", which has always been my favourite Hammer film. Her performance here, however, is a decent one, and with the aid of the make-up department she manages to combine the two aspects of her character, the evil, half-demented old crone and the desirable, seductive younger woman. Her character in "The Vampire Lovers", however, is even more complex, being not only seductive but evil but also having something fey and doomed about her. (It is a misconception to believe that horror is a genre which can, and generally does, dispense with good acting. Peter Cushing's contribution in "Twins of Evil" is another example of a subtle and skilled performance in a Hammer movie).

"Countess Dracula" is not a great film, but Pitt and the supporting cast do enough to keep it watchable. I was going to call it "watchable nonsense", but that, I think, would be unfair. There is a difference between nonsense and fantasy, and this film, like most of Hammer's output, is essentially a fantasy, a dark fairy story. And like most fairy stories it has a moral, in this case that beauty is only skin deep. 6/10

This Hammer horror made during the company's swansong years is based on the real life tale of the Hungarian Countess Bathory who bathed in the blood of young virgins in order to preserve her youth. Here the character has been renamed the Countess Nadasdy and is excellently portrayed by Ingrid Pitt. Director Peter Sasdy (who was Hungarian) manages to extract some period detail (not the pleasant kind) from the Jeremy Paul script such as the treatment of peasants by the aristocracy and he is aided by the rich lighting of Cinematographer Ken Talbot. Sasdy was without doubt one of the best Hammer or British horror film directors alongside Terence Fisher, Roy Ward Baker, Freddie Francis and John Gilling. Indeed Sasdy was the only other director than Terence Fisher who was able to relate the attitudes of society and the eerie atmospheric poetry to the vampire myth. While this is no criticism against Sasdy, it would of been interesting to see how Terence Fisher would have approached the film. The material would have given him many opportunities to place emphasis on character and setting, which was the main features of his style. Other delights include the able support from the always reliable Nigel Green who plays a faithful servant who supplies Pitt with suitable victims and Maurice Denham is fun as the ill-fated inquisitive librarian Master Fabio. The film has now been reissued on DVD with "Twins Of Evil" and "Vampire Circus" by Carlton as a box set entitled, "Hammer House Of Horror: The Vampire Collection".

"Countess Dracula" is an okay watch. It's not one of the best Hammer movies but that doesn't meant that it's a bad one either. The story is good but it seems to drag at times. The cast is fine as it usually is in Hammer films. I'm sure the men's costumes were historically accurate but I found them rather annoying at times. "Countess Dracula" is not one of my top picks when it comes to Hammer movies but it's still a satisfying watch.