The Blood Countess review – Isabelle Huppert reigns supreme in a surreal vampire fantasia

Vienna turns into a playground of camp, cruelty and aristocratic disdain in a blackly comic take on the Báthory legend – with Huppert gloriously suited to the title role From the dark heart of central Europe comes a midnight-movie romp through the moonlit urban glades of Euro-goth and camp from German director Ulrike Ottinger. As for the star … well, it’s the part she was born to play. Isabelle Huppert is Countess Elizabeth Báthory, 16th-century Hungarian noblewoman and serial killer, legendary for having the blood of hundreds of young girls on her hands and indeed her body, in an attempt to attain eternal youth. The “blood countess” has been variously played in the past by Ingrid Pitt, Delphine Seyrig, Paloma Picasso, Julie Delpy and many more, but surely none were as qualified as Huppert who importantly does not modify her habitual hauteur one iota for the role. Her natural aristocratic mien and cool hint of elegant contempt were never so well matched with a part. She gives us the ...

Kevin Costner calls lawsuit over on-set rape scene a ‘bold-faced lie’

Actor and director responded to stunt professional’s claims she was forced to perform an unscripted sexual assault

Kevin Costner has spoken out against a lawsuit filed by a stunt performer on his film Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2, alleging that she was forced to perform a “violent” unscripted rape scene without required notice, consent or the mandatory presence of an intimacy coordinator.

In a legal declaration filed Monday in LA superior court, Costner called the breach of contract suit, filed in May by lead stunt double Devyn LaBella, a “bold-faced lie” that was “designed, through the use of false statements and sensationalistic language, to damage my reputation”. The Yellowstone star seeks to have LaBella’s suit dismissed or kneecapped under anti-Slapp laws, measures that are supposed to protect against intimidation lawsuits.

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