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.
Review of Bathory: Countess of Blood
