Dracula In 1983, McNally additionally suggested that Stoker was influenced by the history of Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who allegedly tortured and killed between 36 and 700 young women. It was later a commonly believed rumor that she committed these crimes to bathe in their blood, believing that this preserved her youth. Báthory's castle was also located in the Carpathian Mountains, just as Dracula's, albeit in a different region. In her book "The Essential Dracula", Clare Haword-Maden suggested that the castle of Count Dracula was inspired by Slains Castle, at which Bram Stoker was a guest of the 19th Earl of
Countess Dracula scene, the peasants curse her as "devil woman" and "Countess Dracula". "Countess Dracula" was based on Hungarian Countess Erzsebet Báthory (1560-1614), who was responsible for the deaths of allegedly 600 girls and young women, all of which involved torture and gruesome methods of killing. Allmovie has retrospectively called the film "one of the more underrated films from the latter days of the Hammer Films dynasty." "The Hammer Story: The Authorised History of Hammer Films", on the other hand, wrote that the film's "distinctly anemic blood-lettings fail to lift a rather tiresome tale of court intrigue." "New York Times" film critic