Countess Dracula – 1970 | 93 mins | Horror | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Based on the legends surrounding the historical figure Countess Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian noblewoman tried along with four accomplices for the torture and murder of an unknown number of young women in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the film stars horror icon Ingrid Pitt as the vain, murderous Countess Elisabeth.

The ageing Countess is instantly attracted to Imre Toth (Sandor Elès), the young son of her dead husband’s best friend, who has been summoned to the reading of the Count’s will to find that he has inherited stables, horses and a cottage on the estate. When she accidentally discovers that her serving-girl’s blood has a rejuvenating effect on her, the Countess seizes her chance to recapture her youth and ensnare Toth by masquerading as her own daughter, Ilona. However, Ilona (Lesley-Anne Down) is on her way to the castle, so the Countess has to enlist the help of her long-standing lover, Captain Dobi (Nigel Green), to ensure that her daughter does not arrive and wreck her plans.

With Ilona abducted and held captive in a woodcutter’s cottage in the nearby forest, the Countess prepares to marry Toth, but is horrified to discover that the effects of the blood are only temporary and can vanish without warning, leaving her looking older and more unattractive than she was originally. Desperate to keep the truth about her identity from Toth, the Countess persuades her companion, Julie, and blackmails Dobi into providing her with further victims so that she can sustain her youthful appearance.

However, as the bodies begin to be discovered, victims become more difficult to find, and Dobi fails to contain his jealousy of Toth and his fury at the Countess, her secret becomes increasingly more difficult to keep, pushing her to desperate actions.

Countess Dracula is generally viewed by critics as one of Hammer’s less successful horror films, predominantly because of its slow pace, the vacuous performance from Lesley-Anne Down and the unconvincing transformations from beautiful young woman to crone undergone by Pitt’s character. It’s certainly true to say that the film is a rather bloodless version of the Bathory legend. Although we don’t know exactly how many young women died at the hands of the historical Countess, estimates vary between around 35 and 650. In Hammer’s version, however, the Countess only murders four women, and only one of these deaths actually takes place on screen.

However, although Hungarian born Alexander Paal, Peter Sasdy and Sandor Elès managed to create a more realistic 16th century Hungarian atmosphere than Hammer may have otherwise have been able to achieve, the film’s historical authenticity is largely irrelevant to the purpose of the film. The idea that Elizabeth Bathory bathed in the blood of her victims in order to preserve her youth has no basis in historical fact, and was taken from later legendary accounts of her. Instead, Sasdy uses the myth to investigate the dangers of greed and vanity, and successfully creates a tale of self-absorbed members of the nobility who are purely concerned with their own desires. The Countess Elisabeth’s search for youth only results in mental instability and destruction, Dobi’s love for her degenerates into jealousy and self-serving lust, and Toth appears to be shallow enough to fall for any pretty young woman that catches his gaze.

The only truly genuine emotions shown in the film are by characters lower down the social scale – the love shown by the mother of Teri, the serving-girl for her daughter, and Julie’s love for Ilona, for example. Although the film uses the traditional clichéd Hammer social divisions, the moralistic element of the film that’s beautifully established at the beginning when Dobi and the Countess’s coachman beat a man attempting to speak to her until he falls under the wheels of the coach and they simply drive on, is developed throughout the film to demonstrate the destructive nature of self-importance.

Although Countess Dracula may not be one of the best or the most horrific of Hammer’s films, it’s certainly worth watching, and Pitt’s performance in her dual role shows her versatility as an actress as well as highlighting why she has a reputation for being one of the most beautiful actresses in early horror movies.

© Anya J. Davis.