En route to England, newlyweds Stefan and Valerie rest at a Belgian hotel. When the mysterious countess Bathory checks in at the same establishment, the concierge—recognizing her—swears she has not changed in 40 years. The couple wakes to reports of a third young woman murdered in nearby Bruges.

A parted mouth behind a veil precedes Delphine Seyrig’s sensual countess, who speaks this striptease of a midnight movie into a biddable trance. Tomb-like blue nights and flashes of catastrophic red splash color over an out-of-season seaside resort, consummating an erotics of burial and oblivion.