countess dracula

The latest addition to Synapse Films’ Hammer Horror Collection, Countess Dracula (1971) is a good news / bad new proposition. On the bright side, the hi-def transfer brings out all sorts of depths, colors and details in director Peter Sasdy’s work. And the extras combine enough old and new bits (audio commentary, featurettes and an audio interview) to make it a more than worthy replacement for the old MGM double feature DVD. The downside? It’s all in support of a film that is probably Hammer’s most toothless vampire production.

Ingrid Pitt stars in this variation on the Elizabeth Bathory tale, accidently discovering that bathing in the blood of young virgins will restore her youth and beauty. But only for a short while. And each time she reverts to a more aged and decrepit version of herself. Imprisoning and then impersonating her own daughter, the Countess seduces a handsome Lieutenant and forces her staff to keep the blood supply flowing so she can remain forever young.

Pitt made her mark the year before in Hammer’s The Vampire Lovers (1970), where she played the predatory Mircalla Karnstein. It was just the kind of erotic shot in the arm the struggling company needed, and Pitt managed to make all those heaving bosoms seem classy. She certainly seemed up to the challenge of a bigger role, and Countess Dracula provided her with just that. Acting beneath an inch of old-age make-up, Pitt rants and rages against her stolen beauty, then shifts gears to play the youthful temptress just a short scene later. It’s not the kind of performance that will earn a statue on one’s mantle, but it’s better than the doe-eyed non-acting turned in by most Hammer heroines.

Instead, the blame for the film’s general sluggishness is a predictable plot that forgoes the studio’s usual gory punctuation marks, replacing them with boobs. Lots of boobs. Certainly more than a PG-rated picture would seem to be allowed, even in the more liberal ‘70s. Which is all well and good, but Sasdy never presents them in a titillating fashion. Pitt is a marvel of human anatomy, but the film needed a bit more of an erotic edge to juice up an all-too-familiar story.

Instead, we’re left with one of Hammer’s most foppish and uninteresting leading men (Sandor Eles), a powerful but wasted performance by Nigel Green (Hercules in Jason and the Argonauts) and some impressive camerawork on equally impressive sets. All just window dressing around a peculiarly transparent sheet of glass.

Yet it fills a slot in the Hammer Horror Collection quite admirably just based on the technical specs alone. There’s still a lot of speckling and a few instances of wear, but you couldn’t fine a more “filmic”-looking high definition transfer out there. Some naughty reversible cover art and the aforementioned extras – which give a good accounting of Pitt’s career both pre and post-Hammer - make this blu-ray / DVD combo easy to recommend for collectors. It just might not come down off the shelf quite so often as the others.