Review for Bathory: Countess of Blood

Bathory is an awful film. It looks great, but looks do not make a great film. It is a shame that such an interesting story as the myth and legend surrounding Countess Bathory was handled so poorly. If Juraj Jakubisko hadn't focused so much on the history of the character and focused more on what made her so popular in culture then he might have had a pretty entertaining film.Bathory tells the story of Elizabeth Bathory a 16/17th Century Hungarian Countess who was famous for killing hundreds of mainly young women and then (so the Legend goes) she bathed in their blood in the belief that it would keep her young and this is why she was dubbed 'The Blood Countess' or 'The Blood Queen'. It is often misbelieved that she was a vampire though this film does not go into any of this. However, the film goes into a lot of the uprising and wars that were occurring at the time which involved (of course) heaving corseted bosoms, looting and raping all graphically depicted here. We see Bathory (played by Anna Friel) raped by her husband (though as everyone looks the same in the film and we only see him once as an adult it will take the next few scenes to reveal that) and losing her child who then just goes back to war as if nothing happened. The war scenes involve buckets of gore, executions and typical mess of men and sword fighting. The film's story for the first half hour seems to be the fate of a Painter who has been enslaved by Bathory. It's never explained why. Then without warning, without any explanation or motives she has huge blocks of ice with babies in it. Why? Again it's never explained, they just reveal it and then move on. Her visit to Transylvania is a little heavy-handed with many obvious vampire/Dracula motifs that could have been a little more subtle. The film plods along while you sit there waiting for the good bits, the bits about blood and murder. It is sad that in this film I am watching simply waiting for the violence to begin, but every time it seems like it does it diverts off for more rather boring character exploration. Finally at almost the hour mark she meets a woman who tells her she can give her the secret of eternal life and so finally we can get to the good stuff. Which sadly isn't that good. She bathes in baths full of blood which she gets from murdering many women, though none of this is seen and we have to wonder where she found all these women and who did the killing? As usual with this film, it is never explained. This carries on until the authorities become suspicious and have Bathory arrested and tried for mass murder. This film feels more like a mini-series in the vein of ITV's Moll Flanders and because of that the film drags along and at two hours it could have easily have been broken down into two-three episodes (and it is actually split bizarrely into three 'Parts' in the film which is a little odd) but this would have made it a lot easier to take in. The reason they didn't is probably because nothing happens in the film and as I say, the film just drags without getting to any of the interesting stuff which is all in the final hour or so. As most of the actors are foreign or speak with a foreign accents (though not all the same one as that would make far too much sense) it is bizarre that this film has no subtitles. There are so many points where they use different languages or mutter their lines to the point where I had no idea what was being said or indeed what was going on. The look of the film is impressive, costume, sets and the general way it has been filmed is great, it's just a shame that they couldn't wrap all of this in an interesting film. The acting from all is very wooden and only Anna Friel seems to know what she's doing and sadly that makes her look even more out of place. Special Features include a number of Deleted Scenes which have no context and so you have no idea where they were supposed to fit in or as most of them are simply just extended scenes what the additional parts are. A quite lengthy 'Making of' would have explained what the Director had in mind… or it would if it had subtitles or a translation of what he was saying (in I presume Czech or Slovak). I am not kidding. The featurette on the 'English' DVD, features the Director and the rest of the cast and crew (apart from Anna Friel) explaining what their intentions where in a foreign language with no subtitles, no translations, nothing. What was the point in including it at all? I am just glad that I was spared a commentary on this film! This is rounded up with Trailers, a Photo Gallery and a Music Video for an unnamed foreign band which is rather bizarre to include at all.