Isabelle Huppertthe all-time monumental French actress, famously mentioned she’s all the time wished to play a “sadistic, manipulative assassin.” She will get her probability in Ulrike Ottinger’s darkish vampire comedy “The Blood Countess,” right here as Hungarian noblewoman serial killer Erzsébet Báthory.
However Huppert, hilarious and good as she ever is and serving crimson-colored seems to be right here which might be to diedoesn’t simply suck blood: She additionally sucks the air out of the room of a crammed gaggle of goofy, slapstick facet characters that push “The Blood Countess” extra towards the realm of a feature-length, less-funny “What We Do within the Shadows.”
The perfect Isabelle Huppert performances, that are all of them, are based on her implacable gaze, eyes like clouded cough drops, and creamy, ivory pores and skin peeking out from under a fancy dress that both works to decorate her low-key persona or play it down much more. The wardrobe that costumer Jorge Jara applies to Huppert as Báthory, right here re-emerging after a long time of deep sleep to place a cease to a mysterious ebook that might probably finish her reign, is undeniably scrumptious.
She surfaces from a catacomb within the first scene on a barge, trying killer in a red-robed gown with a practice that’s extra like a pool forming round her, arriving in a Vienna unstuck in time however with recognizable trendy accoutrements. And Huppert’s efficiency beneath these costumes is a grasp class in side-eyes and barely perceptible facial digressions: She’s nonetheless dead-inside Huppert at her most interesting, however one right here seeking to grow to be, effectively, completely undead.
The finances on the robes and units should have been prodigious, or the below-the-line people had been simply artful, as a result of this can be a visually ravishing film. However followers of the parable of Erzsébet Báthory, who was accused circa the early seventeenth century of killing younger virgins to wash of their blood for her personal beautification, could be let down by what’s in the end a foolish, madcap Vienna journey.
Avant-garde, queer German filmmaking legend Ottinger and co-screenwriter Elfriede Jelinek (creator of the novel “The Piano Trainer” that impressed Michael Haneke’s unsparing romance film starring Huppert as a masochistic musician) discover freedom in a kind of timeless limbo model of Vienna, bathed in gauzy lighting and a coziness that’s onerous to not heat to. Christina Schaffer’s superbly detailed manufacturing design feels, at occasions, like stepping right into a Nineteen Seventies Rainer Werner Fassbinder movie or a type of old-world European lodges the place the bathroom shares area with the bathe, and a jaunty bellhop awaits within the foyer downstairs to ship journey suggestions.
Make no mistake that “The Blood Countess” is attractive, however its cupboard of curiosities, like a subway peddler opening up his coat to the trinkets on the market therein, are largely revealed to be a disappointment.
They embody a kooky solid of characters that solely distract from Huppert’s towering flip (which can also be a reminder of Huppert’s not often exploited reward for comedy). That is an especially lengthy two-hour film, padded out by an overstuffed ensemble. There’s the handmaid Hermine (Birgit Minichmayr, in Sally-Bowles-meets-German-expressionist make-up and hair), now working as a housekeeper within the Vienna lodge Báthory returns to. Huppert entreats her to assist find this probably lethal historical tome, and help in furnishing an all-out vampire gala within the course of (replete, once more, with dazzling seems to be). This dreaded ebook could make a bloodsucker mortal once more if touched by a vampire’s tears, so cue the panic from throughout the group.
Then, there are the pesky vampirologists Theobastus Bombastus (André Jung) and Nepomuk Afterbite (Marco Lorenzini), who’ve arrived at this lodge for a vampire convention and are fascinated by Erzsébet’s legend, and my god, her robes, too. Plus “Afire” star Thomas Schubert as Erzsébet’s vegetarian vampire nephew, longing for a style of mortality and probably proving to thwart her mission to annihilate this ebook that might additionally finish her. You would possibly begin to actually lose the plot as Erzsébet and people on her tail head off into the alleyways and canals of Vienna — right here, rickety noir-like shapes blanketed by a chilly air — sucking what blood she will be able to. Chase sequences via streets and down staircases are extra thuddingly deadpan than raucously camp.
There’s a silent-film high quality to the overacting on show from everybody besides Huppert, whose wild outfits and impeccable comedian timing style her Erzsébet Báthory into one of many actress’ flashiest (and greatest) latest creations. However she deserves a greater, extra compelling costume within the form of a movie to outfit a bloodsucking flip that can inevitably beg for camp recreations down the road. You’d suppose with Jelinek on the horn — whose masterful “The Piano Trainer” is now chargeable for one of the vital beloved rediscoveries of the twenty first century — a richer script could possibly be so as. The anemic plot of “The Blood Countess,” nevertheless, practically doesn’t justify the blood-letting wanted to totally take a chew out of Huppert’s efficiency.
Grade: C+
“The Blood Countess” premiered on the 2026 Berlin Movie Pageant. It’s at the moment in search of U.S. distribution.
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