It was Jakubisko's first English-language film and an international co-production between the cinemas of Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and the United Kingdom.

In this retelling, the Countess is a healer who conducts medical experiments and rudimentary autopsies in a "hospital" beneath her castle.

Meanwhile, maidens in the area have been dying of seemingly unrelated causes, and Erzsebet is seen bathing in a large tub of red liquid as the girls' now-mutilated corpses are buried nearby.

When their plans repeatedly fail, they nonetheless capture the Countess and torture members of her household to try to obtain incriminating information.

Juraj Jakubisko declared in an interview: I decided to make this film because Countess Elizabeth Báthory is the most famous Hungarian aristocrat that lived in what is Slovakia today.

[3]In late January 2006, Famke Janssen was announced to play Báthory, and her photos with Jakubisko showed up in the media.

Variety criticized the lack of character development in the film saying "Jakubisko loses sight of the countess herself" and Friel "fails to make the audience care about her fate.

"[6] Screen Daily had similar criticisms saying "A stronger cast might have given the characters some weight, but Anna Friel’s shoulders are ultimately too frail.

"[7] The Bathory story was dramatized in an earlier film, Immoral Tales (film) (1973) by Walerian Borowczyk, in which it is the third of four vignettes (preceded by “The Tides,” based on a story by André Pieyre de Mandiargues and Thérèse the Philosopher, a pornographic 1748 novel, and followed by a visit by Lucrezia Borgia to her father Pope Alexander VI in 1498).