Bathory: Countess of Blood (2008)

the audience applauded

So much average

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Hands down one of the worst films in history. as others have said, Anna friel. is very good given the mess she had to wade through. great scener, costumes and sets but an appalling script and uneunneces y comedy. the net result is a blood soaked mess.overall i cannot recommend this amateurish offering from a director who should know better.dont waste your time watching this.clean the fridge instead.

Many reviews here find the monks' humor out of place, inappropriate, or they just didn't see the purpose of it. It's my opinion that if you didn't find it amusing, then its most likely more of a cultural difference than a matter of taste. This type of humor is very common in Slovakia and Romania. I'm saying this as a Slovak-American, someone married to a Romanian, and who lived in Romania for five years.I also agree with the reviewers who point out this is a post-modernist historical fiction. It's more of a fantasy than either a horror tale or historical biography.Yes, there are some flaws with the point-of-view at the beginning. The first part was disjointed because it kept switching plot lines and character focus, but the second and third parts worked magically. I'm sure it also seemed complex or confusing if you are not familiar with the inner struggles and politics of the Hungarians, Slovaks, and Romanians at that time. But, I find it interesting and even amusing that the conflicts still continue within these reviews about whose version of history is right (or best) -- the Hungarian Catholics, the Lutherans, the Slovaks, the Romanians in Transylvania, etc. That's basically the point of the movie! We'll never know the "truth" unless we could have had some spies there writing it all down in a record that also verified the other evidence. Every noble family and religion in that space has always had political power motives in presenting their own versions of history. It gets so crazy and sad at a point that all you can do is make a joke (like the monks) and try to laugh so you don't go crazy too.

Lavish, romanticized account of the life and times of 16th century Hungarian countess Erzsébet Bathory, history's most prolific serial killer...BATHORY, a would-be epic with nice period detail, aspires to myth-buster status by painting the "Bloody Countess of Čachtice" as a victim of political chicanery in a male-dominated society but all it accomplishes is a "legend" of its own by white-washing history, facts be damned. Here, as a wealthy woman who's vast holdings could turn the tide in a power struggle between Catholics and Protestants as they fight off a Muslim invasion, Countess Bathory is more sinned against than sinning and framed for crimes she never committed. Yeah, right. Valentine Penrose & Alexander Trocchi's well-researched "The Bloody Countess: Atrocities Of Erzsébet Bathory", offers a significantly different account based on historical records:"Descended from one of the most ancient aristocratic families of Europe, Erzsébet Bathory bore the psychotic aberrations of centuries of intermarriage. From adolescence she indulged in sadistic lesbian fantasies where only the spilling of a woman's blood could satisfy her urges. By middle age she had regressed to a mirror-fixated state of pathological necro-sadism involving witchcraft, torture, blood-drinking, cannibalism and, inevitably, wholesale slaughter. These years, at the latter end of the 16th century, witnessed a reign of cruelty unsurpassed in the annals of mass murder with the Countess' depredations on the virgin girls of the Carpathians leading to some 650 deaths. Her many castles were equipped with chambers where she would hideously torture and mutilate her victims, becoming a murder factory where hundreds of girls were killed and processed for the ultimate youth-giving ritual: the bath of blood..."In Juraj Jakubisko's film, Erzsébet Bathory is depicted as an intelligent woman ahead of her time and a Protestant preyed upon by the Catholic Church as well as her late husband's covetous best friend although she still finds time for a passionate affair with the Italian painter Caravaggio (!) as her subjects try inventing spring-powered roller skates, phonographs, still photography, and primitive airplanes a la Leonardo Da Vinci. The tale, a de-fanged poison valentine to renaissance Hungary, is served up on a grand scale but twists the truth into a monumental mis-carriage of injustice that's recommended to revisionists only. What's next, JEFFREY DAHMER -THE MUSICAL?

I honestly do not see while people are bashing this movie. Some of their reasons are because they do not understand it and it's more like a series of pictures or that it's not like the "actual Elizabeth Bathory". When honestly... if they had somewhat of a more open mind.. they would have got it. As well.. if they had read the description of the movie.. it clearly says this is the story of opposing the thought of her being an actual serial killer a.k.a Historical Fiction film.Anyways....The flashbacks or dreams or whatever... were showing you the mind of Elizabeth and what she wanted despite the fact she was going crazy and could not tell between reality and dreams. The "green dreams" most of them were showing the future and the moment it happened it showed you again to be reminded. As for the acting... I saw nothing wrong with it at all. It was not B-Rated at all.. and I can tell you this..Anna did one heck of a job compared to some very "famous" actresses like Megan fox who cannot act at all. I do agree some of the comedy with the monks in there was out of place.. but there was a reason behind it I am sure. Other than that... this movie was NOT a waste of time and I'd watch it over and over again.So I rate this 9/10. It is worth a watch... unless your one of those people who always fell asleep during history class and do not know the true story of Elizabeth Bathory. and again this is Historic FICTION film.