It's ironic that as Ingrid Pitt's Countess Elisabeth Bathory realizes that her true age is returning, she reaches for a rosary and begins to pray. That signals the obvious truth that she feels, via her birthright, that she has the right to not only be cruel to the poor (including her own servants) and commit murder if it benefits her. The film opens with the recently widowed countess planning to bring her daughter (Lesley Anne Downe) home to receive her inheritance. After a servant girl cuts herself and squirts blood on the countess, she finds that virgin blood gives her youthful skin. She schemes to have her own daughter abducted, posing as her daughter in order to land a young army officer she desires. But the virgin blood doesn't last, and that means more murders and a feeling of terror in the countryside, with great suspicions falling on the countryside, known as "the devil woman" by the superstitious villagers.
It's not a role of vanity for the beautiful Pitt, made up plainly and getting uglier as her soul turns more evil. This doesn't feel fully set in its time period, with sets a bit more lavish than other films set during the time period. But, it's suitably sinister, never gross in its presentation of the sinister killings. Nigel Green is excellent as Pitt's accessory, not at all one dimensional yet guilty of allowing Pitt to continue her reign of terror. This gives no lame excuse for Bathory's actions, other than the fact that she was insanely vain and consumed with the hatred of any girl young and beautiful. Perhaps an influence for many vain wicked queens in the Grimm's fairy tales (particularly the queen in Snow White), the story of Elisabeth Bathory is an allegory to the evils of vanity, narcissism, and abuse of power. This is much better than more recent versions of this story, direct and without pretensions.
It's not a role of vanity for the beautiful Pitt, made up plainly and getting uglier as her soul turns more evil. This doesn't feel fully set in its time period, with sets a bit more lavish than other films set during the time period. But, it's suitably sinister, never gross in its presentation of the sinister killings. Nigel Green is excellent as Pitt's accessory, not at all one dimensional yet guilty of allowing Pitt to continue her reign of terror. This gives no lame excuse for Bathory's actions, other than the fact that she was insanely vain and consumed with the hatred of any girl young and beautiful. Perhaps an influence for many vain wicked queens in the Grimm's fairy tales (particularly the queen in Snow White), the story of Elisabeth Bathory is an allegory to the evils of vanity, narcissism, and abuse of power. This is much better than more recent versions of this story, direct and without pretensions.