A Gruesome Story Gets a Live Soundtrack from Claire Rousay at Gables Cinema

More than 400 years ago, a Hungarian noblewoman became notorious as one of recorded history's most prolific serial killers.

Elizabeth Bathory, member of a powerful noble family in what is now Slovakia, was accused of murdering hundreds of girls, from the peasantry to the upper classes, from 1590 to 1610. Lurid rumors spread around the kingdom about the so-called "Bloody Countess," such as that she bathed in the blood of virgin victims to retain her youth. Eventually, she was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned in Čachtice Castle until her death in 1614.

Though modern sources call into question the details of Bathory's persecution — her family were influential and powerful Protestants in a Catholic polity during the Reformation, and few of the accusations were based on anything more than rumors — her story has nevertheless inspired countless adaptations. Certain scholars have said the Bathory story influenced Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. The tale has even found its way into animation: In 1981, Slovakian director Viktor Kubal turned the story into a cartoon, The Bloody Lady.

Now, the film is getting a special event screening courtesy of Coral Gables Art Cinema: Renowned experimental musician Claire Rousay will perform a live score accompanying the movie when it screens in Miami on Wednesday, September 3. The rare presentation, initially commissioned by FilmFest Gent's Videodroom section, has only made it to a handful of venues in North America since it premiered in Belgium in 2023.
Known for stretching ambient music's conventions by adding emo and hyperpop elements, Rousay's Bloody Lady score is a stripped-down affair in keeping with the film's simple style. Using pianos, synthesizers, and other electronic instruments, she creates an atmospheric backdrop of sound that's creepy and foreboding in some places and plaintive and dreamy in others.

While the film's original soundtrack includes sound effects and an orchestral score, Rousay says she tried hard to avoid the kind of emotional suggestion that typically accompanies movie music.

"There isn't any extreme range of emotion or suggestion to feel anything. And that was on purpose because of the very limited and simple animation style," she says. "You can really take what you want from the film when you watch it without the original sound. So I wanted to interact with that, because I don't really see myself as much as on this equal playing field with the film, because it feels to me like this kind of piece of history that I'm separate from. It's more of a conversation, but it's only one-sided, so I never want to overstep."

Rousay had never heard of the film or Viktor Kubal when she was approached by Videodroom — which commissions musicians to create new music to accompany cult films — to rescore the mostly wordless movie in celebration of the director's 110th birth anniversary. Kubal, along with many animators from the former Eastern Bloc, has never received widespread attention in the U.S. (aside from the odd Simpsons parody). That's to our detriment: The postwar era was a productive and creative period for animation in Eastern Europe. Movements such as the Zagreb School of Animation in the former Yugoslavia experimented with animation in ways that haven't been seen since, while cartoons like Well, Just You Wait! from Russia and Son of the White Mare and The Rabbit with the Checkered Ears from Hungary have only recently gained Western recognition.
"I had no reference for any of this," Rousay says of Kubal's films. "When it was sent to me, they were trying to use the most approachable or easiest to reference terms. They're like, 'It's like horror Walt Disney.' And I was like, 'What the fuck? That sounds awful!"

But watching the strangely beguiling film quickly changed her mind. Kubal reinterprets Bathory's story as a fairy tale that manages to incorporate humor and horror in equal measure. The film introduces Elizabeth as a young and gentle princess who one day gets caught in a rainstorm and takes shelter in a woodsman's home. They fall in love and, upon parting, she takes out her heart and gives it to him as a memento. But the gesture has a fatal repercussion: Elizabeth turns into a sadistic monster, tormenting those she once loved and recruiting a manservant to aid her killing spree. And yes, she grows obsessed with blood and even bathes in it.

"As soon as I watched The Bloody Lady for the first time after they sent the files over, I immediately started learning way more about Viktor Kubal, his personal history, but also all of the animation that he was part of, and his role in film at that time, in the Soviet era," Rousay says. "Now I've got Blu-rays all over the place. I've got the Best of Viktor Kubal box set times two."

Rousay even has a Euro bill with Kubal's face affixed to the fridge in her apartment. "I had no reference for it, and I went 200 percent in the deep end."

Rousay's score for The Bloody Lady is available on Bandcamp.

The Bloody Lady, featuring a live score by Claire Rousay. 8 p.m. Wednesday, September 3, at Coral Gables Art Cinema, 260 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables; 786-472-2249. Tickets cost $20 via gablescinema.com.