The original film is purely a historical effort, and carries none of the self-reflective Hollywood trappings (let's face it, they would never have been able to afford to film abroad much anyway.). It's the start of this vividly written novel, and of course only the beginnings of what Hammer never made. I could have sworn I'd watched the opening scene way back when ITV's growth into 24-hour coincided with VHS and my teenage years.
But this also raises a major point about the book – that this is a book written in the 2010s mimicking the attitude of those in the 1970s to '30s Hollywood. His collusion in what follows the discovery is the crux of the piece. We generally witness this through the English eyes of Frank, and while he is a been-there-done-that Hollywood star, it is definitely pertinent that he was born English. Like all good horror stories, this is definitely one that is about something, in this case the rampant hubris involved in the power of looking young, and the falsity of cinema ( for a business that should be all about seeing it does seem to drive so many people blind). Cue a descent into the kind of excess that only Hollywood can produce…
A freak accident suggests that, like her compatriot and namesake, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, the blood of young women will turn back the clock on Elizabeth's years, and make her youthful, the vivacious beauty of old. Their career – jointly and separately – has been going downhill, hers irreparably as talkies have proven she is not the home-spun American dream, but Hungarian.
Cue a major flashback to the days when cinema idols Frank and Elizabeth were living there, and growing a very singular approach to sex, drugs and each other. Clever, but things here don't feel fully justified.ġ970s Hollywood, and a small group of people on a rough-and-ready coach tour round the stars' homes and scenes of scandal gets diverted to the completely ruined mansion once owned by a true golden couple. Summary: What looks like an adaptation of the old Hammer movie is the novelisation of what might they have created for a sequel or more modern remake.
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