Eternal (2004)

Simply A Masterpiece

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

I suspected a lot out of this movie, and I was correct. I was only really interested in seeing this film because of my interest in the legend of Elizabeth Bathory, but the movie isn't that good. It has a huge production scale on a near claustrophobic setting with very little credibility. It's basically a high budget sadomasochistic porn film with a plot. Bathory enthusiasts will find it interesting, porn aficionados will appreciate it, but serious horror fans will be bored as the storyline drags on the murder crime drama interludes interspersed with scenes of violence and sexual eroticism. In the end, it's not revealed if the woman in question is supposed to be Bathory or an admirer. She bears no resemblance to the historical character and the facts of the Bathory legend are inexact. Claiming the movie is based on actual events is a bit of a misnomer of you consider the fact that heavy artistic license was taken to alter the actual events into a modern setting almost five hundred years after the fact.

I liked it, and agree it could be done much better. It is like all the elements are 'there' and it needs a good polish and smoothing of the rough spots.For the trivia buffs there is apparently an opera based on the same source material (see: http://bathory.org/erzstale.html) There may be other material out there. Returning to the film, the DVD 'Extras' lead me to believe there were modifications to the plot and some interesting edits post production. Some scenes contain a complete "jump" which caught me out initially.I think it deserves a 7 for originality, and not boring us with the lore -- It could have been a lot better.

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT* I was excited about this one. I saw that it played in a few theaters in New York and L.A. before shuffling off to the video store. That's a good sign. At least they tried to give it a chance. I also can't get enough of the Elizabeth Bathory legend/myth. There's just something about a woman insisting in bathing in blood that speaks to me. So it was with high hopes that I rented this one. Surely, "Eternal" would be sleazy enough for a discriminating B-movie lover such as myself.Bad news. "Eternal" actually has pretensions of being a real movie. The horror! So a detective is investigating the disappearance of his wife. All of the clues lead to Elizabeth Kane, wealthy hot woman. Kane might actually be the real Elizabeth Bathory. The detective won't give up his search and chases her around the world as everyone he knows keeps getting killed for her blood baths.Here's my main problem with this wannabe classy exploitation flick: Kane does not get naked! Repeat, Elizabeth Kane, the woman who was supposed to bathe nude in blood, does not get naked. This is horrible. How dare they not show a scene with Kane scrubbing herself clean with gallons of blood? OK. Fine. There's one scene where she's coming out of a bath. But it's shot from a distance and you only see her back side. You see, the key to making an exploitation flick is being exploitative. This is not how it's done.Kane rushes through her female love scenes like she's got more important things to do. What could possibly be more important? She's too quick to kill her victims. Couldn't they have lingered on the love making just a bit? In fact, there wasn't really any love making, just some quick kissing scenes and then Kane went for the jugular. "Eternal" looks good, with its luxurious settings, fancy costumes and hot women, but the bloody payoff scenes are not there. It can be skipped.

I'm not even sure where to begin with this abortion of a film... acting laughably bad (this is MST3K material, it's so bad). You get the impression that the actors in the film worked in porn and are trying to go mainstream... Sex is about as non-sexy as it can get... plot/story idiotic/predictable...ending was strikingly bad and uninteresting. Sex scenes were lousy due to the poor execution. Whatever historical background existed about this story was squandered by this piece of rubbish. The only movie that MAY be worse is Deuce Bigalow/European Gigolo, but it's hard to tell...