Countess Elizabeth Báthory

Did Elizabeth Bathory really bathe in virgins’ blood? This Halloween season, let Isaac and Demetria ruin your fun as we explain why the sexy, bloody story you’ve heard about the Bloody Countess is sadder, weirder, and more dependant on 16th-century Hungarian laws about serfs than you thought.

Featured image: A portrait of the young Countess and her attractive forehead (Image source)

Ingrid Pitt as Elizabeth Bathory taking a bath in Countess Dracula, a Hammer Horror film from the 1970s. Reviewers have pointed out that the movie seems more like an excuse to show Ingrid Pitt bare-breasted than a genuine stab at a horror movie. Which, fair, I get it. (Image source)

Erzsebet as a Hellboy villain–one of her many, many turns as a vampire. (Image source)

The trailer for Bathory: Countess of Blood, a 2008 drama that seems to have at least remembered there was a war on. In this version of the story, Elizabeth is secretly a good person who has a bad reputation because she runs medical experiments and autopsies in her case. György Thurzó is a scheming sleazebag who tries to proposition her at her husband’s funeral, some hallucinogenic mushrooms are involved, and her blood-red bath’s just from an herbal bath bomb.

A Bathory-inspired bathing scene from 2016’s The Neon Demon. (Image Source)

A fan video from Lady Gaga’s spin on the character in American Horror Story.

A sampler of some of the dozens of metal songs about the Bloody Countess.

A trailer for an upcoming Elizabeth Bathory movie. This one has the traditional sexy period-inappropriate underwear, but seems more focused on Satanism than torture.