Lady of Csejte (2015)

Please don't spend money on this.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

With this photography, production, scenarios..figurines ... could have been an excellent film about Bathory, not a silly story with children .. what a pity. Only the ending given to the characters was consistent with the story / legend. Who does not know Bathory, will not understand anything. Those who know will not like it. Even if it was something fanciful trying to defend the Countess, as in the movie Bathory, or, in my view, the best film about the legend, The Countess, could have been much, much better. Only what impressed me was the bathtub, identical to the action figure of macfarlane toys.

Two gypsy children captured for stealing are taken into the custody of the Countess Bathory, a feared and legendary lady who lives in a huge impressive castle. While the younger brother Mischa (Lucas Bond) makes awkward acquaintances with other juveniles who live in the castle grounds, the young girl Aletta (a tremendous performance from Isabelle Allen) becomes friendly with the countess herself and her many serving women. The girl's impudence is well matched against the Countess's regal bearing and they grow close, Bathory dressing her in Riding Hood Red.Visually, this is a wondrously epic fairy-tale of the darkest kind. Colours, costumes, locations and design are truly faultless. Vibrant warmth glows from crackling torches and illuminate the interiors and provide a contrast to the increasingly cold, stark exteriors. A collection of European actors head the cast, and help give a sense of other-worldliness to the proceedings. Only the story itself lets things down; it really is paper thin, and tends to drag – although the visuals ensure this is not as much of a hardship as it would otherwise be.Bathory, reputedly responsible for the deaths of 650 children as the opening credits tell us, is written as little more than a Wicked Witch despite the delicious playing by Svetlana Khodchenkova. Her two closest serving girls Dorata and Ilona, elegantly bedecked in royal blue, are my favourite characters. They are wonderfully arch, bitchy characters, terrifically played by Lia Sinchevici and Alexandra Poiana respectively.Although darkness pervades this Gothic tale, the most gruesome moments are reserved for the very end, as Aletta recounts the fate of the various characters four years later.