User reviews

Fields stained with Turkish blood. Villages and witches burned. High castles and deep catacombs. Bleak life full of vivid imagination. Such is the world Bathory, The Bloody Lady of Cachtice.

Elizabeth Bathory lets you see the film through the eyes of a mother, lover and ruler rather than the legendary serial killer. Throughout the film she strives to protect her children, love and land while ignoring her tainted reputation. The intrigues escalate. Blood is spilled. And a false myth is born.

Although there is a complex epic plot, the film feels more like a series of still pictures. There is a lot of symbolism and the plot slows down so that you can fully enjoy it. Apart from the story, the Bathory also takes some time to explain how myths are created and abused to serve one’s needs. The acting is outstanding but does not stand out as much as the Hungarian costumes that make the film look fresh.

Unfortunately the movie is significantly flawed by repetitive comic relief in which two monks use various inventions to spy on the countess. They seem to have come from another movie and make you question the taste of the writers. Should there be a version without those comedians a 9/10 rating would be appropriate.

Lavish, romanticized account of the life and times of 16th century Hungarian countess Erzsébet Bathory, history's most prolific serial killer...

BATHORY, a would-be epic with nice period detail, aspires to myth-buster status by painting the "Bloody Countess of Čachtice" as a victim of political chicanery in a male-dominated society but all it accomplishes is a "legend" of its own by white-washing history, facts be damned. Here, as a wealthy woman who's vast holdings could turn the tide in a power struggle between Catholics and Protestants as they fight off a Muslim invasion, Countess Bathory is more sinned against than sinning and framed for crimes she never committed. Yeah, right. Valentine Penrose & Alexander Trocchi's well-researched "The Bloody Countess: Atrocities Of Erzsébet Bathory", offers a significantly different account based on historical records:

"Descended from one of the most ancient aristocratic families of Europe, Erzsébet Bathory bore the psychotic aberrations of centuries of intermarriage. From adolescence she indulged in sadistic lesbian fantasies where only the spilling of a woman's blood could satisfy her urges. By middle age she had regressed to a mirror-fixated state of pathological necro-sadism involving witchcraft, torture, blood-drinking, cannibalism and, inevitably, wholesale slaughter. These years, at the latter end of the 16th century, witnessed a reign of cruelty unsurpassed in the annals of mass murder with the Countess' depredations on the virgin girls of the Carpathians leading to some 650 deaths. Her many castles were equipped with chambers where she would hideously torture and mutilate her victims, becoming a murder factory where hundreds of girls were killed and processed for the ultimate youth-giving ritual: the bath of blood..."

In Juraj Jakubisko's film, Erzsébet Bathory is depicted as an intelligent woman ahead of her time and a Protestant preyed upon by the Catholic Church as well as her late husband's covetous best friend although she still finds time for a passionate affair with the Italian painter Caravaggio (!) as her subjects try inventing spring-powered roller skates, phonographs, still photography, and primitive airplanes a la Leonardo Da Vinci. The tale, a de-fanged poison valentine to renaissance Hungary, is served up on a grand scale but twists the truth into a monumental mis-carriage of injustice that's recommended to revisionists only. What's next, JEFFREY DAHMER -THE MUSICAL?

This story follows the rise and fall of one of history's most prolific serial killers, Countess Báthory who supposedly bathed in virgins blood to stay youthful. 

This is a comprehensive fictionalised TV version directed and written by Juraj Jakubisko with mixed production values in both tone and atmosphere. The setting is fantastic and breathtaking, however, the exterior scenes lack the Gothic feel that the interiors have. 

As a TV film, in several parts, the Monks narration and involvement arguably fits, however, as a film it may have benefited from the omission of the character entirely. You'll also either love or hate the involvement of painter Caravaggio. Historical inaccuracies aside and the unnecessary humour injected usually by the monk, this incarnation of the legend is very interesting and adds food for thought to the tale of Báthory. In addition, it gives an interesting portrayal of politics, religion and royalty of the time.

Anna Friel is fantastic as the miss-judged Erzsébet Báthory and gives a wonderful performance, full of range and emotional depth. It's not all out horror, a possible nod to Ingrid Pitt in Countess Dracula (1970). Co-Star Karel Roden is on top form as Juraj Thurzo and  Vincent Regan is notable. The supporting cast do just that. The principle characters have strong motivations for their actions and the morale choices are at times shades of grey. 

It's not without its faults but there's a handful of interesting dream and hallucination sequences and enough twists on the tale to keep you watching. This coupled with some fine locations, costumes and performances makes Bathory worth your time.

"Bathory" is a long film divided in three Parts (Ferenc, Darvulia and Thurzo) based on the story and legend of an Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory that lived in the Upper Hungary Sixteenth Century in the period of the Turkish invasion and got the fame of bathing in blood of virgin maids to keep her beauty.

The art direction and the music score are classy and wonderful and the lead actress is very beautiful despite the weird wig she wears. Unfortunately after 141 minutes running time I am not sure whether she was an innocent victim of a conspiracy, bathing on herbs to remain beautiful; or whether she was a criminal logged in the Guinness Book as the remark in the very end since the messy and never clear screenplay shows her as an ambiguous character. In some moments she seems to be sadistic and in other moments she seems to be very pure. The subplots with the Italian painter and the two spy-monks are quite unnecessary and ridiculous.

In the end, director Juraj Jakubisko wastes a great budget and a story with a good potential with a confused tale of greed and treason. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Condessa de Sangue" ("Countess of Blood")

The great thing about this film is it's unique style, which has great flair, very like the best of Ken Russell. It doesn't try to be blandly mainstream, the director is too talented for that, he has too much vision to fit in with the prosaic , boring and anodyne rot usually filling our screens. This film entertains with gusto, flair, beauty and horror. One may quibble with any film and look for faults, but this film is fascinating and compelling, suitable for anyone interested in the drama of the life of Erzsebet Bathory. One soon comes to see through the eyes of the lead characters, their brutal and beautiful world lives and breathes again, shockingly, before our eyes.

Erzsabet's story is told in a such a colourful, dynamic and thoroughly gripping way, that certainly had me looking forward to seeing more, like asking for a second helping of a surprisingly delicious pudding, I relished what I found to be so enjoyable after having heard such bad reviews. Erzsabet's life and times were brutal and this is shown graphically but not too eye wateringly. The performances are highly entertaining and extremely powerful especially the characters of Erzsabet, Caravaggio and Thurzo. Some have quibbled about the English accents of the actors but actually I thought Ezsabet's Hungarian accent rather convincing, the chill of steel to the edge of her voice. It is a very accessible story, so who would be so daft as to require the actors to speak Hungarian and so lose half the audience, who are either too dense or lazy to read subtitles. Frankly a ridiculous quibble, one does not notice anything but how fine the performances truly are.

Visually stunning and beautiful, the script gives us a thumpingly good story and altogether it is a mesmerising piece of cinema. It is so powerful that twenty four hours after watching, it still haunts me and I look forward to seeing more from this director and creative team. I feel I've discovered, at last, a piece of English language cinema that isn't formulaic, that isn't dull and predictable, that isn't the same old same old, that isn't like every other pleasant enough but unimaginative 'product,' here is something unique and artistically brave and exciting.

Altogether I think one would have to be in a very sour and unforgiving mood to find fault. If you want to be entertained and why else watch, everyone should enjoy this unfairly maligned but unusually fascinating film.

Redbox got rights to this 2008 reject from Czech TV, and melted it down into a 3 hour movie that they tried to pass off with a horror sub-title, "Countess of Blood".

Instead, what you get is a Hungarian History lesson that is about as clear as Goolash. They take the notorious Blood Countess of Hungary, Erzabet Bathory, who was one of the influences for Dracula, and actually try to spin her in a positive light (Namely, that if she was brutal at all, she was brutal for the time she lived in.) A tighter, shorter movie would have worked better, without the unneeded characters like the two monks who come up with wacky steam-punk inventions.

I think the movie looks great and puts you in that time period pretty well... and it quickly touches on the politics of feudal Austria-Hungary. But it's really just too long and unfocused.

Many reviews here find the monks' humor out of place, inappropriate, or they just didn't see the purpose of it. It's my opinion that if you didn't find it amusing, then its most likely more of a cultural difference than a matter of taste. This type of humor is very common in Slovakia and Romania. I'm saying this as a Slovak-American, someone married to a Romanian, and who lived in Romania for five years.

I also agree with the reviewers who point out this is a post-modernist historical fiction. It's more of a fantasy than either a horror tale or historical biography.

Yes, there are some flaws with the point-of-view at the beginning. The first part was disjointed because it kept switching plot lines and character focus, but the second and third parts worked magically. I'm sure it also seemed complex or confusing if you are not familiar with the inner struggles and politics of the Hungarians, Slovaks, and Romanians at that time. But, I find it interesting and even amusing that the conflicts still continue within these reviews about whose version of history is right (or best) -- the Hungarian Catholics, the Lutherans, the Slovaks, the Romanians in Transylvania, etc. That's basically the point of the movie! We'll never know the "truth" unless we could have had some spies there writing it all down in a record that also verified the other evidence. Every noble family and religion in that space has always had political power motives in presenting their own versions of history. It gets so crazy and sad at a point that all you can do is make a joke (like the monks) and try to laugh so you don't go crazy too.

Crows are seen eating live rats for no reason, it's such a short shot why would they allow the rats to be harmed for that. It's not CGI. Its not a prop. It's live animals being abused, and it's not necessary at all. There's also a dog's body shown, and I find it hard to believe that they were able to train a dog to "not breathe" for an entire scene, and that body is also very much NOT a stuffed animal. I have no respect for any production that puts animals in harms way for the gratification of feeling obscenely and pretentiously artsy. I have no respect for the PEOPLE that allowed this to happen.

This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen (and I've seen "Freddy got fingered"). I found myself cringing over the acting but mostly over the horrible dialogue. Why oh why are they speaking English (or rather, trying to)?! The weird dream and fantasy sequences did not help either. Yes, the scenery and the costumes are very good, but it doesn't help. A turd is a turd even when coated in silk.

The most stupid part, though, had to be the monks sent to spy on the countess. They turn this story into a parody of itself.

It could have been good. I WANTED it to be good, to be a notable reply in the stories, true or untrue, surrounding the countess Bathory, but no matter how hard I try I cannot in good faith recommend anyone to spend two hours on this movie. If you want to know more about Erzsebet Bathory, this is not the movie for you.

This movie was just a huge mess. It was 2 hours and 15 minutes of absolute nonsense. Scenes were barely strung together by back and forth banter that didn't even progress the plot. It was made out to be more of of a history film, but I didn't feel like I was even learning anything. I went in with high expectations of more blood and gore but instead got this long, drawn out movie that I found myself rolling my eyes at more often than not. It seemed that it was edited and compiled by a blind man that had no concept of timing or plot points. Even if this movie did give me anything I wanted it was still garbage for what it was trying to be. For all the time and money spent on filming this you would think it would be at least passable but it wasn't, It wasn't at all. I feel like if I filmed myself using the snapped DVD to cut my wrists and drain out all my blood, it will make a better movie then this.

It's true that a myth has been built around Elisabeth Bathory. But that myth is not her reputation as a monster: that is wholly deserved and borne out by historical fact. The myth is that of Bathory as vain, beauty-obsessed blood-bather. While there might be some genuine basis for this -- serial killers, after all, have been obsessed with stranger notions than the ones legend has attributed to Bathory -- the bottom line is that this lesbian murderess was a sadistic fiend who extracted intense sexual pleasure from the torture and murder of young girls. The revised version was manufactured in the Victorian era, because people couldn't bear to acknowledge that the "gentler sex" could be as bloodthirsty as men. This was, after all, the era of John Ruskin, "separate spheres," and the notion of woman as civilizing influence. Thus, Elisabeth Bathory was turned into a supernatural fiend whose story mainly served to warn women of the evils of "female vanity."

Apparently, we have not come very far from the mentality of the nineteenth century, for we still live in a culture that cannot or will not view women as anything other than wholesome pillars of moral rectitude. Thus, Karla Homolka's depredations were whitewashed in a loathsome and factually corrupt straight-to-video movie. Aileen Wuornos is turned into some kind of culture hero. And gender feminists refer to the likes of Homolka and others as "classic examples of female victims of male sadism."

Now we have this pack of lies, in which Bathory is victimized by power hungry men while she valiantly strives to protect her children. Yes, the old standby, folks: when you want to make excuses for evil women, just portray them as nurturing and self-sacrificing, willingly shouldering the burden of undeserved ignominy for the sake of their children. The kind of characterization which has nauseated feminists and gelded Marxist males for generations, but which they never fail to exploit when it suits their purposes.

I'm a huge fan of the beautiful and talented Anna Friel. Her presence and performance are the only reasons I give this piece of dreck two stars. May everyone else involved with its production rot in hell.

1. The dialogue writing and delivery are absolute cringe-worthy the entire duration of the film. 2. The film has a glaring anachronism in every scene. 3. I am not myself obsessed with plot holes, but when there are so many and they are so obvious it makes a viewer certain the writers assume their audience is mentally challenged.

I was very disappointed in this movie. I won't give away the plot, so I won't comment on the actual content of the movie except to say that it was a completely false portrayal of this terrible woman.

The truth is that Elizabeth Bathory was a sadistic, psychopathic murderer who tortured and killed hundreds of young girls, so many in fact that the surrounding towns literally ran out of young women. It was only when she kidnapped and killed the daughter of a nobleman that she was finally stopped. I think the producers did a great injustice to everyone in making this movie. It is little more than a collection of fancy costumes and poor acting that contains virtually no historical fact.