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

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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 ...
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Wicked forever: the enduring appeal of The Wizard Of Oz

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Musical sequel Wicked: For Good, enchanting audiences across the world, arrives as the 1939 fantasy continues to dominate pop culture

Most of the biggest streaming services are notoriously neglectful of any movie released before the 1990s (and in some cases, before the turn of the millennium). Even the big theatrical nostalgia screenings are starting to creep into the 21st century, as movies that, to the older among us, don’t seem ready for a multi-decade anniversary. (Did Batman Begins really just turn 20?! Is Mean Girls seriously old enough to drink?) So it’s all the more impressive that one of the hottest properties of the past few years has been ... The Wizard of Oz, a movie far closer to its 100th anniversary than its 25th.

Of course, The Wizard of Oz as (shudder) intellectual property dates well before the 1939 release of the beloved MGM musical. L Frank Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz at the turn of the previous century, in 1900. It spawned 13 increasingly eccentric sequels, which Baum wrote with what seemed like some reluctance right up until his death in 1919. His final Oz book was published posthumously, and the series continued on without him.

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