Countess Dracula (1971)

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Countess Dracula (1971)

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It's only a few seconds into Countess Dracula until a lifeless corpse is first encountered. This being a Hammer Films production and all, that probably ought to go without saying, but Count Nádasdy doesn't meet that kind of end. No, the Count was an admired and respected gentleman of great means, and there was nothing the least bit gruesome or supernatural about his death. His last will and testament are read shortly thereafter. Some of the Count's closest friends and colleagues are richly rewarded, and others… well… aren't.

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Countess Dracula (1971)

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No matter what those around her may have gained, all that the widowed Countess (Ingrid Pitt) sees is loss. Her husband is gone. Her once legendary beauty is a distant, faded memory. No matter how much wealth and property she controls, all the Countess feels she really has to look forward to are at best a few more years of an empty, unfulfilling routine. She's still reeling from these realizations when she lashes out at a careless servant. It's an attack vicious enough to have spattered some of the young girl's blood onto the Countess' aged, weathered face. The woman looking back at her in the mirror looks some fifty years younger…the part of it smeared with blood, at least. The Countess quickly marches to the servant girl's quarters to finish the job. What's one dimwitted, useless child – someone who might as well be property – compared to youth, beauty, and a new lease on life?

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Turning the clock back the better part of a half-century has its share of logistical headaches. For one, the Countess can't simply stroll down the stairs and announce that she's stumbled onto some sort of sanguine fountain of youth. She instead poses as her own daughter, one who's spent most of her life away from the castle. To maintain that faéade, the actual Ilona (Lesley-Anne Down) is kidnapped during her long-awaited return home and held captive by a monstrous brute.

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The Countess' lust is rekindled as her youth is restored, and she quickly becomes enthralled with a young military man (Sandor Elès) taken under her late husband's wing. As it turns out, though, the rejuvenating effect of those few splashes of blood is all too temporary. The Countess' beauty quickly withers and decays, rendering her visage even more decrepit than before. She needs a steady supply of youthful blood, dispatching the castle steward (Nigel Green) to carry out her brutal regimen. Dobi loves the Countess as she was, but deprived of her affection and any meaningful inheritance – not to mention

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blackmailed into committing murder – he devolves into something far more cold and cruel. Despite the best efforts of the Countess and her attendants, such a staggering number of victims cannot go unnoticed forever, but bathing in sacrificial blood is an addiction she can't possibly quit.

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Countess Dracula accomplishes something I can't say about any other film inspired by the nightmarish atrocities of Elizabeth Báthory: it portrays the Countess as a sympathetic, tragic figure. The first of the many murders for which she's responsible takes place largely off-camera. Such an approach makes it that much easier to see the Countess' transformation from a dour, elderly woman to a young, achingly gorgeous sexpot as a joyous experience. I don't see death; I see instead a lust for life. When the effect fades and the Countess once again looks as if she's well into her eighties, the devastated expression on her face is genuinely heartbreaking.

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This "Dracula" has no fangs and needn't transform into any sort of furry creature; the horror emerges by witnessing the Countess' descent into madness. That's a remarkably difficult goal to achieve, and Countess Dracula executes it brilliantly, thanks to a smart, character-driven screenplay and a gifted cast. Ingrid Pitt, arriving mere months after being the most extraordinary thing about The Vampire Lovers, contributes an even more memorable performance. There's more than old age makeup differentiating the Countess, young and old; they're vastly different characters, and Pitt flawlessly realizes the frenzied dips and dives of their emotional arcs.

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The emphasis here is placed more heavily on emotional viscera rather than in buckets of stage blood. The murders are intense and haunting without being graphic, and that's quite a compliment coming from a seasoned gorehound like myself. Remarkably, the stunning Ingrid Pitt isn't the most visually arresting thing about Countess Dracula. Director Peter Sasdy and cinematographer Ken Talbot, who had previously collaborated on Hands of the Ripper, share a remarkably cinematic eye. The wardrobe and production design are tremendous as well, benefitting greatly from sets left over from Universal's Anne of the Thousand Days.

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There isn't a weak link in the cast, and the sharply written screenplay by Jeremy Paul gives them no shortage of quality material with which to work. Countess Dracula is often shrugged off as being slow and uninvolving, but its rich characterization and thematic strength kept an iron grip on my attention. This is a story about people on the brink of having everything they'd ever dreamt of, only to have it remain frustratingly out of reach, ravaging their minds and moral compasses in the process. It's true that Countess Dracula isn't a traditional Hammer horror film, but that doesn't make it bad; just different.

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Countess Dracula is often dismissed as lesser Hammer, and given its artful craftsmanship, strong performances, and the devastating tragedies at its core, I just can't relate to that mindset at all. This is a film that's very much worth rediscovering and re-evaluating, especially in a release as strong as what Synapse has delivered here. Highly Recommended.

DVDtalk

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Special Features:
- Audio Commentary with actress Ingrid Pitt, director Peter Sasdy, screenwriter Jeremy Paul, and author Jonathan Sothcott
- "Immortal Countess: The Cinematic Life Of Ingrid Pitt" featurette (10:47)
- Audio Interview with Ingrid Pitt (08:30)
- "Still Gallery" slideshow
- Theatrical Trailer