Directed by:
Peter SasdyScreenplay:
Jeremy PaulCinematography:
Kenneth TalbotComposer:
Harry RobertsonCast:
Ingrid Pitt, Nigel Green, Maurice Denham, Lesley-Anne Down, Marianne Stone, Peter Jeffrey, Anne Stallybrass, Patience Collier, Sandor Elès, Andrea Lawrence (more)Plots(1)
In medieval Hungary, Countess Elisabeth Nadasdy, an embittered, ageing widow, discovers by accident that virgin's blood causes her skin to become youthful and smooth. Determined to retain her new youth at all costs, the Countess coerces her lover to abduct a string of young virgins to keep her supplied with the blood she now craves to stay beautiful...
One of Hammer's most enduringly popular films and a benchmark for 1970s horror, Countess Dracula stars Ingrid Pitt in an iconic, career-defining role as the aged countess who must regularly bathe in virgins' blood to regain her fading youth.
(Network)
Reviews (3)
Peter Sasdy was a rather mediocre director in the case of the feature films he made for Hammer. Countess Dracula, based on the story of Elizabeth Báthory, has the beautiful Ingrid Pitt in the lead role, as well as a rather bountiful screenplay with some dramatic links between the characters. However, the directorial grasp of the film is very weak, as it evokes television entertainment more than a big-screen historical drama. That becomes obvious in the illogical behaviour of the supporting characters in the first half of the film and in the action’s lack of naturalness. In the second half, when the plot unfolds between multiple characters, this careless approach is a shame. And don’t look forward to any horror, as there are only a few such scenes lasting a few seconds each. A weak three stars.
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Countess Dracula is a very dark fairy tale with an atmosphere like The Brothers Grimm, which occasionally slips into romance like a soap opera, from which it is always rescued in time by some murder, some exposed breast or at least some intrigue. Nothing more, nothing less. Just another B-movie from the Hammer studio, which is duly proud of its origins.
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This is the kind of film you want to see mainly as a curiosity, to witness that such films were also made and that they carried the legacy of the vampire count. No matter what we say, this is a film that should rather be named "Countess Bathory," because it has much more in common with that fact/legend. It just doesn't have the right creepy level and not really any interesting storyline.
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