By Sir Lord Brian Puberty

History's most enduring figure of skinspiration to countless Goth chicks, metalheads, and bug-eyed horror freaks, Elizabeth Bathory was a seventeenth-century Hungarian countess who is believed to have been responsible for the torture and murder of dozens (some say hundreds) of virginal female nubiles.

Bathory's nobility kept her from ever being convicted of any crimes, although her accomplices were sentenced to death by dismemberment, decapitation, and immolation-but she was ordered to be walled up in her bedroom and fed through a small hole in the wall until she died four years later in 1614.

Across the last 400 years, Countess Bathory's bizarre story has become legend, extending from rampant medieval muff diving in the palace to include the now familiar elements of bathing in tubs of virgins' blood to maintain her youth and beauty.

The Bathory story is also both noteworthy and bone-worthy for being, along with Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 gothic novel Carmilla, one of the main sources for our favorite horror subgenre, the lesbian vampire film.

The early 1970s produced a sexplosion of vadge-itarian vamps and general perversity from the dirty minds of Eurosleaze auteurs such as Jesus Franco and Jean Rollin.

In honor of Halloween and the ghoulish perverts who wait all year for an excuse to talk about this kind of thing, here are ten of our favorite movies inspired by the bloody (and often bare-breasted) Countess at her murderous worst-and hottest.

Daughters of Darkness (1971)
Who Shows Boobs & Sheds Blood: Danielle Ouimet (Picture: ), Andrea Rau (Picture: )
The Skinny: Now available in a deluxe two-disc DVD edition, Daughters of Darkness is Belgian director Harry K?'s defining classic of lesbian vampire flicks. When Danielle Ouimet and her new hubby (who may or may not secretly be a Friend of Dorothy) arrive at a deserted hotel, they meet none other than 400-year-old Countess Bathory (Delphine Seyrig) and her Gothed-out female companion (Andrea Rau). While Rau keeps hubby busy, the Countess sets her sights on Danielle and puts her cougar charms to work on the nubile naif. The ladies' leztastic love scene shot through orange gauze was almost certainly an inspiration for the four-star meeting of the mounds that takes place between Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon in latter-day classic The Hunger (1983) (Picture: ).

Countess Dracula (1971)
Who Shows Boobs Sheds Blood: Ingrid Pitt (Picture: )
The Skinny: Although the title implies a connection to the Bram Stoker creation, Countess Dracula sticks fairly closely to the Bathory story. This time around, English beauty Ingrid Pitt plays the tit-ular role, not as a vampire, but as an extremely vain (with good reason) noblewoman who has discovered the restorative power of bathing her boobs, bush, and bare buttocks in virgin's blood. Nice work if you can get it. Ingrid places a lot of importance on cleanliness, as you can tell by her other fully nude bathing scenes (though not in blood) in Hammer Horror favorites The Wicker Man (1973) (Picture: ) and The Vampire Lovers (1970) (Picture: ).

The Blood Spattered Bride (1972)
Who Shows Boobs Sheds Blood: Maribel Mart?/a (Picture: ), Alexandra Bastedo (Picture: )
The Skinny: The Blood Spattered Bride actually has very little to do with Countess Bathory, but it does hold the honor of having one of the greatest horror-film names of all time. Maribel Mart?/b plays half of a newlywed couple that must not have seen Countess Dracula the year before, because they also end up getting too close to a Sapphically inclined villainess (Alexandra Bastedo) who has young Maribel cleaning her carpet like a Stanley Steemer before her husband can say "Billy Jean King!" Shag-slurping isn't the only pursuit Maribel is led into by Bastedo, and soon the two gal pals are planning a grim fate for Maribel's cuckolded husband. Luckily he finds his wife (naked) and Alexandra (naked) while the two are sleeping off a night of bloodletting and bush licking in a king-size coffin and sends them both to hell in a love casket. Don't miss the first appearance of Bastedo's boobalas as they're dug out of the sand! (Picture: )

Female Vampire (1973)
Who Shows Boobs Sheds Blood: Lina Romay (Picture: )
The Skinny: After the tragic death of his first muse, Soledad Miranda, lightning struck twice for undisputed master of the erotic horror film Jesus Franco when he discovered comely Euro-vixen Lina Romay. What Vampyros Lesbos (1970) (Picture: ) did for Miranda, Female Vampire (a.k.a. The Bare Breasted Countess) did for Romay-namely, it gives her an opportunity to get naked, play around in blood, and have three or four lickalicious lesbian sex scenes. You won't want to miss Lina getting lezzy when she rips off Monica Swinn's (Picture: ) panties and goes down for a midnight snatch snack. Also check out Lina, in the spirit of the Countess, taking a little blood-Bathory in the buff.

The Legend of Blood Castle (1973)
Who Shows Boobs Sheds Blood: Ewa Aulin (Picture: ), Lucia Bos?a
The Skinny: Ceremonia Sangrienta, a.k.a. The Legend of Blood Castle, was part of the Spanish horror boom and was advertised as "The true story of Countess Elizabeth Bathory" but seems to conflate her story with that of fifteenth-century serial murderer Gilles de Rais, who used his victims for occult rituals. This time around, the Countess, played by Spanish rose Lucia Bos?b, accidentally discovers the age-defying effects of virgins' blood when it splashes all over her hand as she's bitch-slapping the living bejeezus out of one of her maids. Elizabeth's love for the red stuff is shared by her husband, who slits the throats of pretty girls for a good time. While the subjects of the Count and Countess are understandably upset that their daughters have become the local nobility's private blood bank, the viewer has little to complain about, since all this bloodletting necessitates that we see a lot of skin.

Immoral Tales (1974)
Who Shows Boobs Sheds Blood: Paloma Picasso
The Skinny: A true master-piece, Polish director Walerian Borowczyk's Immoral Tales consists of four vignettes-three of which portray murder, and sex with a cucumber. Paloma Picasso, whose rack, rump, and rug are as mind-blowing as any of her father Pablo's other creations, plays the Countess like no one has before or since. The full-frontal nudity is literally wall-to-wall when Paloma is getting her clothes ripped off in a lesbian orgy scene that could raise the Titanic. Panty grease isn't the only juice that flows in Castle Bathory, and Paloma's infamous blood-bathing sequence is a true classic of gore-otica. Look out for a cameo by Swedish porn star Marie Fors?a, who stuffs a broken necklace into her vadge, possibly hoping that Paloma will go muff diving for pearls.

Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary (1975)
Who Shows Boobs Sheds Blood: Cristina Ferrare (Picture: ), Helena Rojo (Picture: )
The Skinny: In this entry, our Bathory-esque femme fatale is played by the impossibly hot Cristina Ferrare, who was a supermodel before she married sports-car-magnate-turned-drug-trafficker John DeLorean then divorced him and became a TV talk show host. Although Cristina is kept alive and super-hot by human blood, she has grown tired of her vampiric nomad existence. Her latest potential victim, Mexican mound muncher Helena Rojo, almost tempts her into domesticity and mortality in a Sapphic seduction scene, culminating in a boiling-hot bubble-bath makeout, but, like they say, a blood-sucking freak is always going to be a blood-sucking freak.

The Erotic Rites of Countess Dracula (2001)
Who Shows Boobs Sheds Blood: Brick Randall (Picture: )
The Skinny: 2001 saw a renewed skinterest in the Bathory legend, as is exemplified in this softcore flick featuring "built like a" Brick "house" Randall as a female rock star (?!) who is turned into a vampire and struggles to control her raging bloodlust, even as she gives in to her still more raging bush lust. Frankly there's no connection to the Countess here except for some vague idea about virgins' blood, but who cares? This is yet another skinstant classic from Seduction Cinema, and when you're watching Brick working her way down a naked girls' back to that holiest of holies, the heinie hole, you'll be hungry for moon pie, not pining for Hungary!

Eternal (2004)
Who Shows Boobs Sheds Blood: Caroline Neron (Picture: ), Ilona Elkin (Picture: )
The Skinny: 2004 gives us an updated version of Countess Bathory (now going by Elizabeth Kane), who has stayed alive for all these years and has become adept at seducing bi-curious beauties and filling vats with their blood, using personal ads to troll for her very lucky, then suddenly very unlucky, victims. Caroline Neron is the most bone-worthy Bathory since Paloma Picasso, and her scenes do not disappoint. Her first victim, Sarah Manninen, is a sexy young suburban housewife who secretly answers the Countess's "Lesbos Needed" ad to recapture the unbridled lust she felt with another experimentally minded sorority girl in college. She gets all that and more with an intense makeout session followed by an efficient blood draining. The Countess also has her way with a kinky young blonde (Ilona Elkin) who's sleeping with one cop investigating the Countess's murders and is married to his partner. After she's tied down to a bed and stripped topless, Ilona too submits to Elizabeth's tongue lashings. There are lesbionics galore (and a-gore) in this one, and a particularly spectacular blood-bathing sequence that displays an amazingly firm and supple 400-year-old ass.

Hostel: Part II (2007)
Who Shows Boobs Sheds Blood: Monika Malacova, Heather Matarazzo
The Skinny: Eli Roth's sequel to his controversial "torture porn" flick Hostel features real-life lesbiterian and former Roseanne star Heather Matarazzo as the unfortunate victim, who is fortunately nude, of one of the sadistic clients of the European torture-victims-for-rent outfit. This particular client, played by Monika Malacova, is clearly an admirer of the Countess, having a sexual proclivity for lying naked in a stone tub, hanging a naked Italian girl upside down over her, and cutting at her victim with a huge scythe until she is covered in blood and reaches orgasmic bliss. Ms. Malacova is ridiculously hot, and we can only hope she'll be stripping down again, with or without a naked former child star dripping blood down on her.

The Bathory film craze of the '70s began to return as a trickle in the last several years and now promises to become a gushing torrent with the release of a new account of the sanguinary siren to be written and directed by French dish Julie Delpy (Picture: ), who will also star.

Long may the Countess continue to scare us stiff!


Related Links: