Honourable mention: Blood Countess 2: The Mayhem Begins

This 2008 release, directed by Lloyd A. Simandl, is a slice of Czechploitation but, despite it being the second film, it is actually a prequel to Blood Countess. Set in Spring and Summer 1576, the historical Báthory would have been 15 (she was born in the August). The role of the younger Báthory is played by Kristina Uhrinova (who played an unnamed girl in Blood Countess).

This is called “The Mayhem Begins” and it doesn’t, not really. There is a murder committed by the young Erzsébet (Anglicised for the film to Elizabeth) but it is not what I would call mayhem, per se. There is also no bloodletting committed by the young Countess and nothing indicating vampirism (either clinical or supernatural). Hence this gets an honourable mention rather than a review as being of genre interest only.

labour

Now the film starts off with Erzsébet giving birth. The scene is only a couple of minutes long but boy does it seem to drag. She is watched by her Aunt Klara (Nikita Valentin) who, when the baby is born, refuses to allow the mother to hold her child and has it taken directly to the nuns. She mentions that it is a baby born out of incestual sin – she was pregnant by her cousin. The film then cuts forward to the summer.

sneaking through the castle

As Erzsébet sleeps, Klara watches her girls frolic blindfolded and topless as they lightly whip each other. After a while Erzsébet awakens and hears the noises coming from her Aunt’s chambers, she lights a candle and sets off to investigate. Meanwhile one of the girls stumbles into Klara as she replenishes her wine, causing some to be spilt. She accuses the girl of cheating by being able to see through her blindfold (I’ll let you fathom the illogical nature of that train of thought). She has the other three girls whip her, which Erzsébet watches through the keyhole. She takes in the sight of the bored looking victim and then heads back to her chamber.

Nikita Valentin as Klara

Klara then has the girls take the victim to bed and teach her pleasure – as she masturbates watching them together. Erzsébet, in bed, dreams of giving birth and conflates this with being flogged by the four girls as she cries that she is a sinner. It’s a psychosexual scene that fails to summon any power at all. Indeed the film is sparse on story, strong on softcore lesbianism with a mild S&M theme and yet somehow fails to be erotic, at all. Erzsébet eventually wakes from the dream. Meanwhile, at the lesbian orgy, Klara stops being a voyeur and joins in.

lessons

Cut to a scene outside and the four girls frolic in a meadow with a blindfolded Erzsébet for Klara’s amusement. After this Aunt and Niece discuss Erzsébet’s education – she is being taught by a monk called brother Marko (Dalibor Boubin). Following the labour scene this is the first proper plot dialogue and we are thirty minutes in film. Anyhoo eventually Erzsébet will start looking for lesbian fulfilment and grasping at power, she will go out with her Aunt and be part of a murder of a husband and wife (though she can’t quite bring herself to do the deed and Klara has to) and the abduction of their teenage daughter. Klara sells such girls to the Turks, though she gives one to Erzsébet.

castle

There isn’t much in the way of story. Erzsébet kills her first victim (by strangulation) and wields power over the monk to make him do her bidding. The film fails to generate any erotic atmosphere despite the fact that maybe two thirds of its running time is made up of softcore lesbian sex. The filming is perhaps a tad more competent than other budget films but the acting is atrocious generally and the dialogue stinks (though to be fair to the cast they are not acting in their primary language).

The imdb page is here.