Comtesse Dracula

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

Shocking, poetic, well-done story loosely based on the legend of Countess Bathory of Hungary who, it is said, bathed in the blood of young virginal women for the purposes of rejuvenating her skin. Ingrid Pitt plays the countess in all her ugly old age and her fresh nubile new skin. Actually, Pitt does a very good job in a very difficult role of playing two women incredibly apart in age that are supposed to be the same woman. The direction is done by Peter Sasdy, probably the best of Hammer's latter directors, who did a very good job with Taste the Blood of Dracula and Hands of the Ripper. Sasdy knows how to use his camera and can be quite lyrical with it. Some of the scenes are very fresh and inventive. One that stands out is where Pitt returns to her ugliness and all the action of her inner turmoil is seen through some broken lattice. Quite good! Too bad that Hammer had by this time gone to that inferior film stock. This would have been simply gorgeous had it been done five years earlier. Also, by this time, Hammer had to rely on more blood and violence and more exposed bosoms. Countess Dracula is at times quite bloody, with the pinnacle I think being the scene where Pitt is actually caught unawares bathing in blood and massaging her nude bodice with a blood-soaked sponge. Nonetheless the violence really does not detract too much from a pretty good story and execution of it. Nor does the nudity, albeit it rather unnecessary(Andrea Lawrence is quite "charming" in her role as a serving girl...no pun intended). The rest of the cast is very good with Nigel Green really giving a nice performance as a jealous lover and Maurice Denham excelling as a dotty old man. The film stands as a testament to the extremes some people will go through to recapture what was past, and their self-centered, self-serving drive to remain beautiful and young. Is it topical today? You bet ya!

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".

Based on true history of Hungary's early 17th Century, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, Hammer Film's, "Countess Dracula" was meant to be entertaining historic horror, with no aspirations towards anything more or higher. In this entertainment aspect, regardless of lovely actress Ingrid Pitt's considerable feminine endowments, "Countess Dracula" succeeded. If one could fault Hammer Films for anything, it would be its blatant inaccurate film title, which was a transparent marketing ploy to capitalize on the studio's heretofore financially successful vampire horror films.

Nonetheless by reading all the subsequent readers' comments herein, one consistently encounters complaints on "Countess Dracula's" purported shortcomings in plot, acting talent, budget, sets quality, etc., as if the critics were evaluating a multi-million dollar budgeted aspiring blockbuster. Hammer Films execs wanted its viewers to come away entertained by this film. If you watched, "Countess Dracula" and came away entertained, amused, or disturbed then everyone got someone and should be happy.

I won't rehash old observations expounded upon in previous viewers' comments as I have similar ones so I will offer new comments.

One or two viewers previously commented on the horrible aging makeup of Ingrid Pitt/Countess Nodosheen. My new observation beyond this is that in real life, the countess would not have actually looked like an aging grandmother.

Bear in mind that back in circa 1600 AD, young women married at the age of 15 or 16 and quickly bore children soon after. If my history is correct, the real Countess Bathory married at age 16. Assuming bearing a child at age 17, by the time the 18-year old Lesley Anne-Downe/Ilona Nodosheen appears on scene, the movie's Countess Nodosheen should have been only 34 or 35 years old. It would have been possible for the early-thirties Countess Nadosheen to still have appeared relatively attractive. Don't forget that as a wealthy aristocrat the countess would have had a superior diet and nutrition compared to the peasants, would not have had to work outdoors at hard labor, and had access to far better medical service, albeit primitive as it would have been back then. You can imagine an attractive 34 year old woman today being sexually attracted to a handsome, 22-24 year old man, which the young lieutenant Imre Toth was supposed to be.

Sandor Eles, the ill-fated lieutenant Imre Toth, deserves much better treatment in his thankless role than the critics of this viewers' board gave him. His character was not afforded that much dimension to begin with because that is how the film's director envisioned it. Toth is a tragic, innocent victim, and was not meant to be the film's hero requiring cunning, nerves of steel, fighting talent, so forth. I actually felt great sympathy for the Toth character. In the film LT Toth is a real nice guy, of above average intelligence, but no genius, a typical young man filled with visions of military achievement and glory. There is no man who in the same position would not be able to resist the attentions and sexual blandishments of a beautiful woman. We would all fall into the same trap. That is why the Toth character elicits sympathy. He could be any one of us normal guys.

Another observation is in line. The rejuvenated Countess Nodosheen is supposed to look 18-19 years old. But in the film Ingrid Pitt looks older than Sandor Eles/Imre Toth. She looks more like a woman in her late 20's possibly already 30. I attribute that slip-up to the director. It's no fault of Ingrid Pitt. That's how Pitt looked like back in 1970.

One more observation. Did anyone notice that when Countess Nodosheen regained her youth temporarily, her disposition and temperament dramatically improved as well? As an old crone, the countess is dour and mean-spirited. Rejuvenated to around 18 years of age, the now pretty countess smiles a lot, laughs, tells jokes, and is generally much better company to be around. Only twice does the connivance of the elder countess resurface and then in a sexy, bitchy, "Dallas/Dynasty" sort of a way. The elder/younger countess transformation, reminiscent of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, seems to be reaching towards an allegory of good and evil co-existing within the same person.

In my opinion, this is where the inexplicable sympathy for the Ingrid Pitt/Countess Nodosheen character originates. If you watch "Countess Dracula" several times as I have done, you begin to perceive something of a Greek tragedy in the character, maybe MacBeth-like. An elderly aristocrat falls in love with a youthful man she knows she can never have, nor should have. But she circumvents her destiny and age by invoking black magic and murder. The results only ultimately mock her true age and bring misery and death to everyone around her.

Oddly, no one in "Countess Dracula" starts off evil. True, elderly Countess Nodosheen is selfish, mean-spirited, discourteous, and short-tempered, but she doesn't embark upon her amoral path of self-gratification, fornication, and murder until she accidentally discovers the "secret" of youth.

The excellent Nigel Green/Captain Dobi character doesn't start off evil, either, despite being a true SOB. Captain Dobi actually tries his best to dissuade the countess from her path of self-deceit and murder. He appears to truly love the elderly countess at her present age and appearance because they shared a love affair years ago. Captain Dobi predicts with grim accuracy the madness and obsession the countess would descent into should she insist on achieving and maintaining a false appearance of youthful beauty. Captain Dobi's love for the countess is unrequited and in the end betrayed. He allows himself to be dragged down into the same web of deceit and heinous murder.

The countess' trusted nurse/servant, Julie, a very nice, dedicated, and even 'good' character, descends into being an accomplice and an 'enabler'. Hence, the countess' final self-destruction ensnares all, good and bad, around her. Tell me that this doesn't bear some passing resemblance to a character Greek tragedy.

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).