This is not a story about a vampire who stays young by bathing in the blood of virgins. This is an embellished version of historical events.

This is the story of Elizabeth Bathory (Anna Friel) who lived during a time of conflict between the east and west and Catholic and Protestant religions. She was able to survive one, but not the other. This tale depicts the countess as slightly mentally unstable suffering from a disease of the blood. There are scenes which blend reality with dreams in a surreal fashion. It worked rather well for me, but there wasn't a lot of it. Bathory was ruthless and beautiful. In an effort to gain her wealth, her enemies accused her of heinous crimes, at least some of which were true.

What you will first notice is the costumes. They went to great length and expense in this aspect reminding me of Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon." Some of the background is CG, such as the castle with its constant full moon and some of the fires. The monk and his assistant made inventions which made this account seem fictional. Indeed, both of them and the Italian artist appear to be Hollywood creations. Anna Darvulia is historical, but her exact influence is unknown. The film is long: 2 hours and 20 minutes. It moves at a slow and steady pace. You do feel the time. This movie is a not for everybody. It is artsy and based on a true story. It can get boring building background.

Parental Guide: Sex and Nudity.

Redbox got rights to this 2008 reject from Czech TV, and melted it down into a 3 hour movie that they tried to pass off with a horror sub-title, "Countess of Blood".

Instead, what you get is a Hungarian History lesson that is about as clear as Goolash. They take the notorious Blood Countess of Hungary, Erzabet Bathory, who was one of the influences for Dracula, and actually try to spin her in a positive light (Namely, that if she was brutal at all, she was brutal for the time she lived in.) A tighter, shorter movie would have worked better, without the unneeded characters like the two monks who come up with wacky steam-punk inventions.

I think the movie looks great and puts you in that time period pretty well... and it quickly touches on the politics of feudal Austria-Hungary. But it's really just too long and unfocused.

The great thing about this film is it's unique style, which has great flair, very like the best of Ken Russell. It doesn't try to be blandly mainstream, the director is too talented for that, he has too much vision to fit in with the prosaic , boring and anodyne rot usually filling our screens. This film entertains with gusto, flair, beauty and horror. One may quibble with any film and look for faults, but this film is fascinating and compelling, suitable for anyone interested in the drama of the life of Erzsebet Bathory. One soon comes to see through the eyes of the lead characters, their brutal and beautiful world lives and breathes again, shockingly, before our eyes.

Erzsabet's story is told in a such a colourful, dynamic and thoroughly gripping way, that certainly had me looking forward to seeing more, like asking for a second helping of a surprisingly delicious pudding, I relished what I found to be so enjoyable after having heard such bad reviews. Erzsabet's life and times were brutal and this is shown graphically but not too eye wateringly. The performances are highly entertaining and extremely powerful especially the characters of Erzsabet, Caravaggio and Thurzo. Some have quibbled about the English accents of the actors but actually I thought Ezsabet's Hungarian accent rather convincing, the chill of steel to the edge of her voice. It is a very accessible story, so who would be so daft as to require the actors to speak Hungarian and so lose half the audience, who are either too dense or lazy to read subtitles. Frankly a ridiculous quibble, one does not notice anything but how fine the performances truly are.

Visually stunning and beautiful, the script gives us a thumpingly good story and altogether it is a mesmerising piece of cinema. It is so powerful that twenty four hours after watching, it still haunts me and I look forward to seeing more from this director and creative team. I feel I've discovered, at last, a piece of English language cinema that isn't formulaic, that isn't dull and predictable, that isn't the same old same old, that isn't like every other pleasant enough but unimaginative 'product,' here is something unique and artistically brave and exciting.

Altogether I think one would have to be in a very sour and unforgiving mood to find fault. If you want to be entertained and why else watch, everyone should enjoy this unfairly maligned but unusually fascinating film.