Tales of Horror

An excellent site I've recently discovered is Tales of Horror podcast. With an excellent selection of horror tales it is worthwhile in its own right, but from a vampire point of view have a look at episodes 15 and 16. There you will find The Blood Countess parts 1 and 2 respectively.

Of course, historically, Báthory was more the serial killer than the vampire, but with the bathing (and allegedly drinking) of blood she holds a special place in the vampire pantheon. This was further helped by Hammer’s “Countess Dracula” (1970).

In this the search for blood is in order to call her husbands spirit back from the dead, but she soon starts bathing in order to make herself young for when his spirit comes. However, in this version of the tale, there is a staking early on with a suggestion that they might hammer silver nails into the girl's temples for good measure. Of course, we later realise that the girl was not a vampire rather she was an escapee from the Blood Countess, but even so it is all good vampiric horror stuff.