Countess Dracula **** (1971, Ingrid Pitt, Nigel Green, Sandor Elès) – Classic Movie Review 2781

Co-writer/director Peter Sasdy’s 1971 Hammer Films horror tale stars Ingrid Pitt as the aging widowed Countess Elizabeth Nádasdy, who discovers that she can become young again if she bathes in the blood of young virgins.

The Countess is even prepared to sacrifice her own daughter Ilona (Lesley-Anne Down) to revive her youth and this plot twist adds complexity to a superlative shocker based on the life story of the infamous 16th/17th-century Hungarian serial killer Countess Erzsebet [Elizabeth] Bathory (1560 to 1614).

She was said to be responsible for the deaths of 600 virgin girls, which involved torture and gruesome killing, but her atrocities are mostly speculation. Her legend is the prime source of our modern-day concept of Count Dracula as a monster depending on human blood for youth and vitality.

Filmed with notable visual flourishes, Sasdy’s movie is imaginative, stylish and creepy. It may very well be Pitt’s finest hour in the movies. It’s her movie and she’s pretty magnificent. Meanwhile well-cast co-stars Nigel Green and Sandor Elès give her excellent star support in good roles as her lover and servant, castle steward Captain Dobi, and her new young plaything lover, Lieutenant Imre Toth.

The Countess rules her medieval European land ruthlessly with the help of Dobi, whom she gets to kidnap virgins, causing mounting fear and panic. But she infuriates Dobi by playing with the much younger Lieutenant, pretending to be her own daughter.

Also in the cast are Maurice Denham as castle historian Master Fabio, Patience Collier as the nurse Julie Sentash, Peter Jeffrey as chief bailiff Captain Balogh, Jessie Evans, Charles Farrell, Leon Lissak and Nike Arrighi.

Only those looking for Christopher Lee and Count Dracula himself need feel disappointed.

It’s not particularly violent, but it is adult horror material, with an 18 certificate.

OK, Countess Nádasdy would not have been a good title, but they could have used Countess Bathory, maybe.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2781

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