"Eternal" review

Eternal (2004)

Directed by Wilhelm Liebenberg Federico Sanchez

Writing credits Wilhelm Liebenberg Federico Sanchez

Conrad Pla.... Raymond Pope
Caroline Néron.... Elizabeth Kane
Victoria Sanchez.... Irina
Sarah Manninen.... Wildcat
Ilona Elkin.... Nancy

I was excited about this one. I saw that it played in a few theaters in New York and L.A. before shuffling off to the video store. That's a good sign. At least they tried to give it a chance. I also can't get enough of the Elizabeth Bathory legend/myth. There's just something about a woman insisting in bathing in blood that speaks to me. So it was with high hopes that I rented this one. Surely, "Eternal" would be sleazy enough for a discriminating B-movie lover such as myself.

Bad news. "Eternal" actually has pretensions of being a real movie. The horror! So a detective is investigating the disappearance of his wife. All of the clues lead to Elizabeth Kane, wealthy hot woman. Kane might actually be the real Elizabeth Bathory. The detective won't give up his search and chases her around the world as everyone he knows keeps getting killed for her blood baths.

Here's my main problem with this wannabe classy exploitation flick: Kane does not get naked! Repeat, Elizabeth Kane, the woman who was supposed to bathe nude in blood, does not get naked. This is horrible. How dare they not show a scene with Kane scrubbing herself clean with gallons of blood? OK. Fine. There's one scene where she's coming out of a bath. But it's shot from a distance and you only see her back side. You see, the key to making an exploitation flick is being exploitative. This is not how it's done.

Kane rushes through her female love scenes like she's got more important things to do. What could possibly be more important? She's too quick to kill her victims. Couldn't they have lingered on the love making just a bit? In fact, there wasn't really any love making, just some quick kissing scenes and then Kane went for the jugular. "Eternal" looks good, with its luxurious settings, fancy costumes and hot women, but the bloody payoff scenes are not there. It can be skipped.

SCORE: 2 out of 4 impatient Kanes