Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Fantastic!

A different way of telling a story

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

It's true that a myth has been built around Elisabeth Bathory. But that myth is not her reputation as a monster: that is wholly deserved and borne out by historical fact. The myth is that of Bathory as vain, beauty-obsessed blood-bather. While there might be some genuine basis for this -- serial killers, after all, have been obsessed with stranger notions than the ones legend has attributed to Bathory -- the bottom line is that this lesbian murderess was a sadistic fiend who extracted intense sexual pleasure from the torture and murder of young girls. The revised version was manufactured in the Victorian era, because people couldn't bear to acknowledge that the "gentler sex" could be as bloodthirsty as men. This was, after all, the era of John Ruskin, "separate spheres," and the notion of woman as civilizing influence. Thus, Elisabeth Bathory was turned into a supernatural fiend whose story mainly served to warn women of the evils of "female vanity."Apparently, we have not come very far from the mentality of the nineteenth century, for we still live in a culture that cannot or will not view women as anything other than wholesome pillars of moral rectitude. Thus, Karla Homolka's depredations were whitewashed in a loathsome and factually corrupt straight-to-video movie. Aileen Wuornos is turned into some kind of culture hero. And gender feminists refer to the likes of Homolka and others as "classic examples of female victims of male sadism." Now we have this pack of lies, in which Bathory is victimized by power hungry men while she valiantly strives to protect her children. Yes, the old standby, folks: when you want to make excuses for evil women, just portray them as nurturing and self-sacrificing, willingly shouldering the burden of undeserved ignominy for the sake of their children. The kind of characterization which has nauseated feminists and gelded Marxist males for generations, but which they never fail to exploit when it suits their purposes.I'm a huge fan of the beautiful and talented Anna Friel. Her presence and performance are the only reasons I give this piece of dreck two stars. May everyone else involved with its production rot in hell.

Bathory tells the interesting story of Bathory, which they say, she killed young women for her own health and youth. The story has so so much potential, to make a good film of it, but they really ruined it.What comes in my mind, when I think about the way, they made the film? MTV! First you see how Bathory is promised CUT suddenly you are on her marriage - CUT you are on a battlefield - CUT, CUT, CUT.No scene really gives you a deeper seek into the story. You just hop from here to here, there to there and back again. SO you really cannot identify someone with yourself or feel with someone from the film. It is really a crappy MTV style.The story is interesting although. SO, please someone, who knows to make good films should read in the old tellings of the story and make a good film of it. Bathory really deserves that.In my mind, the film was a big waste of time.

I saw the film yesterday and it charmed me. It is a very attractive version of the life of countess Elizabeth Bathory, one in which she is not a murderer but a victim of a plot carried out in order to spoil her of her fortune in the medieval Hungary. Anna Friel made a great role. She a stunning beauty as the countess Bathory, in front of our eyes seems to be the real countess who somehow managed to come in the present times. The passionately love story with the painter Caravaggio is very catching. If I would have lived in the 16th century and I would have seen Anna Friel as the countess Bathory I had fallen in love with her for sure. The rest of the actors and the director did a good job. Apart of Anna Friel I liked Hans Matheson especially, who played Caravaggio.

I saw this movie in Czech. It was obvious that some of the dialog was dubbed. However, this was a minor issue. I am well acquainted with the story of Elizabeth Bathory, having read books and various write ups about her, including the exact testimonies given at the time by her contemporaries, 3 women and 1 man I believe. I expected a movie worthy of this true life story, and I was most definitely disappointed. While I started watching with a lot of interest, this movie was more a series of disjointed events than a cohesive story. Nothing made sense. If the viewer did not have some prior knowledge of the story, you would never figure it out from the movie. I was told that the movie presented a new view of this myth. This view being that the murders were completely invented by those who wanted to take possession of the countess's property. I did not find this in the movie myself. After about 30-45 minutes the movie became numbingly dull and I gave up completely on trying to make any sense of the nonsensical dialog and weird happenings. The movie was way too long, confusing, and there seemed to be no cohesive storyline. It was not even clear that large numbers of young girls were killed at the castle and if so, how or why. I fought to stay awake in the second half of the movie. I learned nothing about the political situation in that part of Europe at that time. All that was shown were wars, but it was unclear who was fighting whom and why. Some narrative would have gone a long way in helping the viewer understand all these issues, but obviously an historical perspective was not this movie's focus, but rather it was one of those "artsy" movies that perhaps only the makers understand. Overall, I would say this was one of the worst movies I have ever seen.