Ulrike Ottinger’s The Blood Countess Review: Isabelle Huppert Stars in a Bizarre Vienna Vampire Satire

Isabelle Huppert stars as a 17th-century aristocrat in Ulrike Ottinger’s black-humor society satire, The Blood Countess. The film drops the historical figure of Elisabeth Bathory—who faced 17th-century accusations of torturing hundreds of servant girls and bathing in their blood—into contemporary Vienna.

Vampire Congress in Vienna

Instead of following a stringent narrative, the production builds an episodic framework where the vampire countess emerges from the underworld via a red boat in the Hinterbrühl Lake Cave. Her arrival coincides with a Vienna congress discussing the identity of vampires in the age of their digital reproducibility, an intentional nod to Walter Benjamin’s essay on art and technical reproducibility.

The hunted countess herself pursues a book whose existence threatens immortal creatures. If touched by a tear, the text would turn immortals into mortals. Her vegetarian nephew, who serves as a reluctant vampire, desperately wants to secure the volume before his aunt can destroy it.

Star-Studded Cast of Characters

A notable ensemble navigates underground catacombs, the National Library’s ceremonial hall, the Strudelhofstiege steps, St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Café Havelka, the Narrenturm, and the Semper Depot. Cinematographer Martin Gschlacht captured these filming locations, which function like pearls on a rosary for a sequence of sketches featuring dialogue written in part by Nobel laureate in literature Elfriede Jelinek.

The character names include the earnest Inspector Unglaube, played by Karl Markovics, and the depressive vegetarian vampire Rudi Bubi Baron von Strudl zur Buchtelau, portrayed by Thomas Schubert, who prefers eating yeast dumplings at Café Havelka over drinking blood. André Jung appears as vampirologist Nepomuk Nachbiss, evoking the spirit of Johann Nepomuk Nestroy.

Director Ottinger on Vienna’s Locations

Director Ulrike Ottinger builds her projects around costumes and settings. I love to work this way, Ottinger told the ORF cultural program Kulturmontag. Locations are basically protagonists in my films along with their history. And if you look at the history of Viennese locations over the centuries, you already have half a screenplay together.

Ottinger scouted several filming locations during a visit to Vienna in the early 2000s, when the initial concept formed. While funding took years to materialize, collaborators gathered gradually. Both Jelinek and Huppert committed to the project early in development.

Musical Highlights and Critical Reception

Birgit Minichmayr plays Hermine, the lady’s maid to the countess. Minichmayr admitted to Kulturmontag that she initially felt considerable respect when preparing to act alongside Huppert, whom she has admired since her youth. A standout sequence pairs Minichmayr and Schubert in a dance routine to a performance by Conchita Wurst.

Wurst acts as master of ceremonies inside a vampire cellar, singing Rise Like a Phoenix until the Cobra tactical unit arrives, only to become enchanted by the music. Additional performances feature Lars Eidinger as therapist Theobald Tandem and Schubert as his patient Bubi.

Critics remain divided on the stylistic approach. Berliner taz reviewer Arabella Wintermayr criticized the film as above all a panopticum of visual ideas, captivatingly beautiful, yet of such rigidity that one would rather hand it over to the museum as an exhibit.