This is one of those films I said I would watch immediately upon acquiring (in view of its reputation) but only got to check out at a much later stage. Incidentally, I had agonized about whether to purchase the MYA DVD or not because it only featured the clothed Spanish print; eventually, I settled on a fuzzy-looking edition (with at least one noticeable audio drop-out) of the more explicit "International Version" accompanied by unremovable Finnish subtitles! Curiously enough, the copy I watched ran for 86 minutes
though other sources claim its full-length as being 102!
This is the fourth film I have watched revolving around the legend of Hungarian aristocrat Erzebet Bathory after Hammer's COUNTESS Dracula (1971; in which she was portrayed by the late Ingrid Pitt), Harry Kumel's modern-day rendition DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS (1971; with Delphine Seyrig) and the third episode of Walerian Borowczyk's IMMORAL TALES (1974; with Paloma Picasso, Pablo's daughter!). I was let down by the Hammer version and, while I admire Borowczyk, the above-mentioned film was not one of his strongest; Kumel's is easily the best of the lot, though it is deemed too arty by some.
To get back to Grau, I was very much impressed with BLOOD CEREMONY: it presents a reasonably authentic period and location sense (complemented by Carlo Savina's evocative score) but, more importantly, the plot holds the attention amid the expected violent/nude highlights. Interestingly, Lucia Bose''s Bathory here is not the historical one but rather a descendant of hers who, noticing her looks fading away, is persuaded by her devoted female servant to follow in her ancestor's footsteps; though the original Bathory was said to have killed hundreds of virgin girls and bathed in their blood to sustain her youth, we only get a handful of murders here (though they undeniably exude a kind of gruesome beauty) and, in a couple of cases, one seriously doubts their all-important virtuousness!
The film puts forward a number of interesting embellishments to the familiar tale: there is a vampire plague before the protagonist even begins her depredations – though this is eventually revealed as a sham by the skeptical local doctor Silvano Tranquilli; still another 'undead' appears in the form of Bathory's own aristocratic companion – played by Espartaco Santoni (as in Grau's own previous effort, VIOLENT BLOOD BATH [1973], he cuts quite a dashing figure here) – whom she 'wills' into procuring her prey!; an unusual development, and possibly a first in the vampire subgenre, has Bose' being haunted by the decaying corpses of her victims; later still, after she catches Santoni being unfaithful with village beauty Ewa Aulin (this was a fine swan-song for the CANDY [1968] starlet, even if her own role was somewhat underwritten), she kills him and, while his corpse is being tried for his vampiric activities(amusingly presided over by a judge named Helsing!), she calmly confesses all and has no qualms about implicating her elderly accomplice as well!! Their subsequent punishment is quite harsh: the latter has her tongue sliced out, while both are walled up alive inside Bathory's mansion; by the way, the film features some gratuitous animal cruelty to boot (such as falcons chewing on live doves and truant children setting a bat bound to a tree on fire!).
Surprisingly, Bose' flourished in this field during the decade – including another collaboration with Aulin, the underrated Giallo THE DOUBLE (1971); she is ideally cast here, though not quite as memorable as Seyrig had been (on a personal note, both actresses had worked for my favorite film-maker, Luis Bunuel, as did character actress Lola Gaos, here playing a sort of witch who advises Aulin on matters of love). The film is extremely well-made for a "Euro-Cult" product (though, again, it does not scale the classy heights of DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS)...and I am not sure it is not actually superior to Grau's more renowned take on another much-abused monster, the zombie, in THE LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE (1974)! Incidentally, that same year also saw the release of two other excellent Spanish horrors, namely Claudio Guerin Hill's A BELL FROM HELL (completed by Juan Antonio Bardem after the latter's mysterious death) and Bardem's own THE CORRUPTION OF CHRIS MILLER. As for Grau himself, I still have to catch up with his SUMMER NIGHT (1962), an award-winning drama with a good cast (including yet another Bunuel alumnus in Francisco Rabal!)...
This is the fourth film I have watched revolving around the legend of Hungarian aristocrat Erzebet Bathory after Hammer's COUNTESS Dracula (1971; in which she was portrayed by the late Ingrid Pitt), Harry Kumel's modern-day rendition DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS (1971; with Delphine Seyrig) and the third episode of Walerian Borowczyk's IMMORAL TALES (1974; with Paloma Picasso, Pablo's daughter!). I was let down by the Hammer version and, while I admire Borowczyk, the above-mentioned film was not one of his strongest; Kumel's is easily the best of the lot, though it is deemed too arty by some.
To get back to Grau, I was very much impressed with BLOOD CEREMONY: it presents a reasonably authentic period and location sense (complemented by Carlo Savina's evocative score) but, more importantly, the plot holds the attention amid the expected violent/nude highlights. Interestingly, Lucia Bose''s Bathory here is not the historical one but rather a descendant of hers who, noticing her looks fading away, is persuaded by her devoted female servant to follow in her ancestor's footsteps; though the original Bathory was said to have killed hundreds of virgin girls and bathed in their blood to sustain her youth, we only get a handful of murders here (though they undeniably exude a kind of gruesome beauty) and, in a couple of cases, one seriously doubts their all-important virtuousness!
The film puts forward a number of interesting embellishments to the familiar tale: there is a vampire plague before the protagonist even begins her depredations – though this is eventually revealed as a sham by the skeptical local doctor Silvano Tranquilli; still another 'undead' appears in the form of Bathory's own aristocratic companion – played by Espartaco Santoni (as in Grau's own previous effort, VIOLENT BLOOD BATH [1973], he cuts quite a dashing figure here) – whom she 'wills' into procuring her prey!; an unusual development, and possibly a first in the vampire subgenre, has Bose' being haunted by the decaying corpses of her victims; later still, after she catches Santoni being unfaithful with village beauty Ewa Aulin (this was a fine swan-song for the CANDY [1968] starlet, even if her own role was somewhat underwritten), she kills him and, while his corpse is being tried for his vampiric activities(amusingly presided over by a judge named Helsing!), she calmly confesses all and has no qualms about implicating her elderly accomplice as well!! Their subsequent punishment is quite harsh: the latter has her tongue sliced out, while both are walled up alive inside Bathory's mansion; by the way, the film features some gratuitous animal cruelty to boot (such as falcons chewing on live doves and truant children setting a bat bound to a tree on fire!).
Surprisingly, Bose' flourished in this field during the decade – including another collaboration with Aulin, the underrated Giallo THE DOUBLE (1971); she is ideally cast here, though not quite as memorable as Seyrig had been (on a personal note, both actresses had worked for my favorite film-maker, Luis Bunuel, as did character actress Lola Gaos, here playing a sort of witch who advises Aulin on matters of love). The film is extremely well-made for a "Euro-Cult" product (though, again, it does not scale the classy heights of DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS)...and I am not sure it is not actually superior to Grau's more renowned take on another much-abused monster, the zombie, in THE LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE (1974)! Incidentally, that same year also saw the release of two other excellent Spanish horrors, namely Claudio Guerin Hill's A BELL FROM HELL (completed by Juan Antonio Bardem after the latter's mysterious death) and Bardem's own THE CORRUPTION OF CHRIS MILLER. As for Grau himself, I still have to catch up with his SUMMER NIGHT (1962), an award-winning drama with a good cast (including yet another Bunuel alumnus in Francisco Rabal!)...