Dir: Ulrike Ottinger | Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Birgit Minichmayr, Thomas Schubert, Lars Eidinger
119’ | Germany/Austria/Luxembourg | Comedy/Horror
Ulrike Ottinger turns Erzsébet Báthory’s blood-soaked legend into a flamboyant cabaret, with Isabelle Huppert presiding over the chaos as an aristocrat too imperious to be frightened by either history or horror.
Huppert’s cool hauteur and unnerving stillness make Báthory less a gothic monster than the commanding hostess of an eccentric fantasy, one that treats vampirism as an excuse for theatrical excess, comic anarchy and amused disdain.
After emerging from a long sleep in contemporary Vienna with her vampiric servant Hermine, Báthory sets off in pursuit of an elusive book linked to the survival of the vampire race. The film soon abandons conventional narrative logic, allowing vampires, academics, policemen, therapists and other eccentrics to drift through a Vienna suspended between the present and a theatrical nineteenth century.
Ottinger’s greatest pleasure is visual. Extravagant costumes, interiors and artificial landscapes give the film the feel of an eccentric stage production, while recognisable parts of Vienna are repeatedly transformed by its deliberately artificial aesthetic. The result is less a conventional horror film than a flamboyant cabaret: theatrical, mischievous and slightly out of control with Huppert reigning supreme as the deranged and slightly decadent doyenne of the piece.
That looseness is both the film’s strength and its limitation. Ottinger piles invention upon invention, and the episodic story can feel more like a sequence of elaborate tableaux than a developing narrative. The broad jokes and deliberately ridiculous characters occasionally make the film seem longer than its anarchic spirit can sustain. Yet its lack of conventional discipline is central to its appeal.
Huppert gives the chaos a commanding centre. She plays Báthory not as a woman troubled by her appetites but as someone who regards the world with amused aristocratic disdain, inhabiting every absurd situation with complete confidence. Birgit Minichmayr provides an energetic foil as Hermine, and their relationship adds warmth and momentum to the film’s strange carnival.
The Blood Countess will not appeal to those hoping for a serious historical treatment or tightly constructed vampire story. Its pleasures are more eccentric: a deliberately excessive fantasy in which Ottinger explores performance, vanity and outsider identity. Huppert’s imperious presence holds the film together, making her performance reason enough to stay for the whole show.
BERLINALE FILM FESTIVAL 2026