Who Was The Countess of The Blood

Hey, everyone. I am a movie lover, and I have talked about a few movies in previous posts. 

What I noticed is that majority of those movies are about Dracula or are linked to Dracula in some way, and I have not talked about any movies about Countess Elizabeth Bathory. Well, I have found one now. It is called The Countess. It is a very simple title for a biographical movie about a very complex woman.

            Elizabeth Bathory was born into a very prominent noble family and was raised in a life of privilege. The movie chronicals Elizabeth’s life, beginning when she was a child. The first scene that shows the audience about her developing character depicts when she learned about life and death. She was learning to plant trees and decided to remove a plant from a pot and bury a bird. She was surprised when she went back later and found the bird was now dead. When she talked to the priest the next day, he explained to her that the body is vulnerable, but the soul is immortal. When young Elizabeth heard that, she decided that it was a good thing at the soul was immortal because otherwise she would have to raise an army against death. 

This tells me that even from a young age Elizabeth Bathory did not like the concept of death. Still, during the scenes where Elizabeth is young, we see her mother force her to watch some peasants being beaten as punishment.

            After that there is a quick succession of scenes where Elizabeth ages. We see that she is violent towards maids and servants beginning very early on. It is also established that she prefers her men to be younger than her — much younger. The scene describing this is when she is approximately 13-15 years old and is watching the baptism of a young lord. She tell her mother that she wants to marry the infant being baptized. Her mother tells Elizabeth that by the time he would be old enough to marry, she will be old and ugly. The actress playing Elizabeth does a fantastic job portraying the disgust and disappointment that Elizabeth would have felt at hearing those words. During the next quick succession of scenes we also learn that Elizabeth had a child, a son, out of wedlock. After giving birth, her child was taken away from her. She only had daughters with her husband.

            As the movie progresses we learn how strong willed Elizabeth really is. Her husband was a very strong warrior. When he died, the king still owed him money, and Elizabeth went to the king to get payment for what her husband was owed. She was a strong woman who ran her household, even after her husband died despite the fact that it was not normal for a woman to run a household without a husband. Now, Elizabeth did take lovers, who were always younger than she was. When she was stood up by one of her lovers she became very hurt. She started to lash out at her maids and servants, becoming more and more violent. She did find another lover though. This new lover encouraged her to punish those who were rude to her. Her violent tendencies grew and grew as the movie went on until it reached the final conclusion.

            I won’t give away how the rest of the movie goes; that is something that you will have to see for yourself. I will say that based on what I have seen, Elizabeth Bathory’s violent behaviour was something she learned from a young age. Violence was encouraged towards those Elizabeth believed were beneath her, which was pretty much anyone.