Eternal

After the disappearance of his wife, a Montreal vice detective makes his own investigation and the clues bring him to the rich mansion of a beautiful and reclusive woman. His own bad behavior will put him in trouble as someone frame him from the murder of his friend's wife. He follows the mysterious woman to Venice and discovers her terrifying secret: she's a “vampire” that keep her eternal beauty by seducing young women before drinking and bathing in their blood!

It is based on the real-life of Erszebet Bathory, a 16th Century Hungarian Countess that allegedly tortured and killed 650 young women to bathe in their blood in the hope to gain eternal life. The movie was not treated nicely by most of the critics, who seem to have thought that it had not enough sex to be soft porn (but lots of lesbian action!) and not enough violence to be horror (well, we do see some blood). It is more of an erotic thriller with a nice & sexy vampire story. The police work of the main character is not very credible, but the characters are all fascinating and the photography, the sets are beautiful. It was shot mostly in Montreal and offer a very nice use of the locations. A few scenes were also shot in Venice and in Umbria. The movie has an opened ending: we suspect what will happen next, and we can let our imagination go wild, but we don't know for sure. Personally, I wanted to see this movie because a friend of mine had a small role in it. But I only recognized him because I knew which role he was playing—we don't even see his face. I was surprised by the good quality of the production and, even if the story is not very original, I was well entertained.

Eternal. Canada, 2004, 107 min.; Dir./Scr.: Wilhelm Liebenberg & Federico Sanchez; Phot.: Jamie Thompson; Ed.: Isabelle Levesque; Cast: Conrad Pla, Caroline Néron, Victoria Sanchez, Sarah Manninen, Ilona Elkin, Liane Balaban. Rated R (Strong sexual content, violence & language). Official web page.



Eternal ©2004 4128257 Canada, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Packaging © 2005 Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.