He was also the author of La Venus d'Ille which Italian horror director Mario Bava adapted to film in 1978.

The Count's potential status as a lycanthrope is suggested through surreal dream sequences and third party story telling.

The film's climax where the bride is killed, is shown only in the aftermath and it is ambiguous as to whether the Count was in bear form when he murdered her.

When a pregnant Russian countess is frightened by a bear, she later gives birth to a male child who acts in some ways like an animal.

As the boys matures, he takes to stalking young women in the forest while wearing the skin of a bear.