User Reviews

This review contains some spoilers.

If there is any one profession that I absolutely have little respect for thanks to personal experience, it is the psychology profession. So it doesn't help my view of psychologists when a movie portrays a character of that profession. With the exceptions of `Good Will Hunting' and `The Sixth Sense,' every non-comedy movie psychologist I have witnessed is either a vile human being or a complete moron. Usually it is the latter category. Think about it. `Color of Night?' `Silent Fall?' `Never Talk to Strangers?' `Separate Lives?' `Snapdragon?' That last movie still makes me cringe when I think about it years after watching it. And now I present `The Mysterious Death of Nina Chereau' to you, with a psychologist that must be the dumbest of them all. But that is nothing compared to the rest of the movie's offenses.

The movie is set in France, where a woman, Ariel Dubois (Maud Adams), has been locked up in an asylum for the past twelve years, accused of the gruesome killing of her friend, Nina Chereau (who, though her name is in the title and she is mentioned throughout, we never see or are told who she was). Martin (Scott Renderer), her new psychiatrist, is convinced that Ariel is not guilty of the murder at all. He suspects that her mind is blocking out the true facts of the night Nina Chereau was murdered. He also is certain that the key to bringing the truth out of Ariel is forcing a confrontation with Ariel's mother (Alexandra Stewart), who has never visited her daughter in all these years. One night, one of the guards tries to make a move on Ariel. She assaults him and escapes the asylum. It was this ludicrous escape that I realized what kind of movie I was watching: a bad one. Martin is sure that Ariel will try to confront her mother, so he heads to the city to beat her there and talk to her mother. He gets nothing out of the mother nor out of the detective that originally handled the case. The detective's sure Ariel is guilty of the murder, and we get plenty of scenes of him telling Martin just that. Very boring scenes. Anyway, through a wild hunch and perfect timing, Martin finds Ariel. I should probably mention here that Martin has developed a crush on Ariel. I don't know why, really, but he has and instead of turning her in to the police, he plots to have Ariel and her mother meet. After he meeting, Ariel disappears again. Martin suspects the worst and goes to find her (again), only to find a trail of bodies. That's when the real bad stuff happens . . .

I'm ending the basic plot description, but I can't exactly go further without revealing key elements, so there are large SPOILERS from here on out. By this point, I haven't really gotten into why I hated this movie, so let me begin. One of the major setbacks is the casting. The movie was made in France and starred many French-speaking people. But it seems clear to me that the producers desperately wanted to reel in an American audience, so the leads are English-speaking actors. Everyone else is French (including Dominique Pinon, from `The City of Lost Children') and the movie is set in France. I kept wondering what Adams and Renderer were doing in France. No one seemed to comment on their being foreigners. Aside from Stewart, everyone else's voice is dubbed. I think that the actor playing the detective was actually speaking English when they filmed his scenes. He must have had a thick French accent, though, for his voice was dubbed. That is fine. However, the actor must have spoken his English very slowly because his dubbing is spoken VERY slowly to match his lips. His long-winded dialogue segments seem to last forever. I felt sorry for Renderer, who seemed genuinely impatient in these scenes, as the camera is usually on him as the detective speaks. Once, after finishing a conversation with him, Renderer walked away checking his watch. I laughed hard, feeling pretty sure he was seeing how much time the scene actually wasted. Another really funny thing I noticed is that, while this takes place in a city, you never actually see people walking around. If I were to use only this movie as reference, I would assume there were only ten people in all of Paris. When Renderer accidentally bumps into someone on the street, it happens to be someone essential to the plot. Even a bystander he almost collides with shows up later dead.

Now remember how I hinted that Renderer's character is stupid? He is quite that. Legally, he is breaking the law, but there are other things he does that are foolish. As mentioned, he falls for a patient (an annoying staple in psychologist movies). But along the way, he stumbles across bodies. (I never really figured out why some people in the movie died.) Renderer finds them and leaves the scene. Except when he accidentally finds the bystander mentioned above. He hits the scene, followed by Stewart's butler, followed by the detective and his silent partner. How nice that half of Paris meets up at this moment! Then there is the ending. (MAJOR SPOILERS HEREIN). The stupidest thing about the movie is that it wants you to believe that Elizabeth of Bathory is still alive and killing virgins. Renderer stumbles upon the hideout and follows a hilariously convenient trail of blood from room to endless room. He also violates Matlock Rule #16 by clutching a knife sticking out of a dead body. And then . . . oh, but I am out of space. I could go on forever, but you should be convinced that this movie is ridiculous and only good for wisecracking MST3K-style. If not, you deserve to suffer through this like I did. Zantara's score: 1 out of 10.

Despite having a somewhat misleading title, this forgotten gem brings a new twist on the myth of Erzsébet Báthory, seen here as a supernatural immortal character thanks, of course, to get the blood of his victims. Although I had seen something similar in the extraordinary "Les lèvres rouges"(Harry Kümel), it is also true that the approach gives Dennis Berry -supported in the script of Claude Harz- is completely different from the film of the seventies. Almost completely ignoring the erotic elements inherent in the character, and also away from the precious aesthetics of Kümel, Berry gives the tape from the beginning all the attention the character of Martin and through it as we know it which at first it seems a simple story of intrigue. Thus the mysterious Ariel is in the background that favors his enigmatic personality and in turn increases the mystery of the plot. Although the action takes place in the 80s, the ambiance and atmosphere are closer to the Gothic horror, thanks mainly to the gloomy interior sets (mansions, psychiatric ...) and filmed in a french old small provincial town. It also contributes to the beautiful and melancholic soundtrack Stephane Vilar. Maud Adams (Rollerball) particularly remarkable for their presence and physical and that its interpretation is far from satisfactory and, in my opinion, is not a right actress for the role of Ariel. Scott Renderer (Poison) does much better in his role as Martin, the young psychiatrist. But the best by far of all the cast is veteran Alexandra Stewart (phobia) playing Suzanne a character that is not what it seems and keep his surprise for the end. There are also small supporting roles for the Hungarian László Szabó, as police inspector, and french actors Charles Millot and Francoise Brion. True, this strange and surprising production made for French television will not be liked by everyone. The pace is very slow, there is little action and almost all deaths are off-screen. But if you like that other unconventional horror, you're a fan of weirdness or draws you everything about Erzsébet Báthory, sure you know enjoy it.

I was very pleased to see a Maud Adams film that was new to me, I'm a fan of hers. And this certainly is a very odd film!

I did enjoy the it and it held my interest. I do have a complaint about the plot, it's structure could have been improved upon. There were no real hints of it having a supernatural twist at the end. With some films it works, a complete surprise ending. 'From Dusk Till Dawn' springs to mind, changing from a thriller to a vampire film, with success. You can connect Ariel and her mothers dislike of each other to the films outcome but that was only a slight hint. Was there was more there than a simple disfunctional mother/daughter relationship? Ariel also picked up a book while hiding in a shop after having escaped the mental home. This was a completely random situation, the book describes the woman Ariel is eventually revealed to be, someone who needs to bathe in the blood of virgins to remain forever young. The book store's owner is later found dead.

While watching this film I didn't make any connection to the book, but it had some purpose, with only a little success.

Maud is excellent in this film as Ariel Dubois. There is little glamour in this, a mental home and the streets of a french town, as the settings. But Maud looks as beautiful as ever, even with less than great costumes. Realism is created via the wardrobe but they should have been slightly improved. Maud's red dress when Ariel is revealed is very much like a temptress' dress.

Scott Renderer acts well in this movie, as Ariel's doctor. I'd never heard of him before. There is a slight casting error in the fact that he is the only obvious American actor. There is no problem, in my eyes, with the France setting and the cast being all English speaking, it's common sense for a mass audience but the rest of the cast sound European, especially exotic Maud, and so Scott Renderer stands out as American.

Françoise Brion, as Ariel's moth, is good casting. She performs her purpose well, especially near the ending, when she is walking around the house with a knife, tension mounts. The scene where she 'lashes out' at Ariel in the cafe seems a little over-the-top but perhaps it would be, given the circumstances.

The supporting cast (head doctor at the mental home, shop owner and the detective) all function well, good casting again.

The directing is okay, nothing particualrly smart or new is done. Editing is fine, apart for moments where it apparently cuts for ad breaks and there weren't any on my recording.

This is certainly an excellent film Maud has made, one of my favourites of hers.