- Why is Lady Durward old?
- Consider. The two Durward twins refer to their mother an old woman, and are horrified when she appears young and tells them it’s because she tapped into her Karnstein heritage to become young again. But her husband has only been dead seven years, and he looks like he’s in his 30s, though, granted, to have children in their 20s he must be at least 40, plus seven years dead. So surely Lady Durward must be in her 40s, not an aged biddy.
- The only explanation that fits the presented facts is that Lady Durward spent her life-force researching and constructing the necromantic spell that brought her husband back as a vampire. It’s not something she could just ‘do’, she had to learn how. As a result of casting the spell she became very old very suddenly, which is why Sara is so afraid of aging - she’s seen her mother go from curvy blonde to grey-skinned hag remarkably suddenly. This is backed up by Doctor Marcus’ shock at her appearance in the carriage where he says she’s ‘become’ old. Yes, she’s wearing a mask, but it’s one modelled on the face her kids saw after she aged.
- At some point after rapidly aging she actually died of old age, which triggered her Karnstein curse and she returned as a vampire, needing only blood/life-force to regain her youth. She had to hide this from the kids as she coaxed her husband through the feeding process that would restore him to full Un-Life, because otherwise she’d have to explain to them what the hell was going on. Apparently the rules are different for corpses restored to Unlife as opposed to people who become vampires when they’re alive, so it took Hagen Durward many feedings to return to youth. When the elder Durwards were killed, their bodies aged to the condition they’d been in had they never become vampires - old and crumbly.
- Where and when is the film set?
The Doyalist answer is "In the Hammer Horror Universe", where it's always somewhere in the region of 18## and all the action takes place in either 'The Village', 'The Castle', or 'The Big Victorian House'.
But on a Watsonian level, it's a tricky pickle. The setting is supposed to be England (Durward is a Scottish name in origin but there are plenty south of the border) but the village of Durward has features that could just as easily be from darkest Carpathia or - if the sun were out - a Spaghetti western. From the fashion of dress adopted by the Durwards it's around somewhere around 1820 to 1840, and Kronos' uniform would appear to be Napoleonic-era cavalry. He and Marcus are supposed to have served together in 'the war', but Kronos is referred to as having been in The Imperial Guard, and both he and Grost are clearly Mitteleuropean. Napoleonic Britain didn't have an Imperial Guard, but then why would an English doctor be serving in the French (or Russian) Imperial Guard? The area suffered a plague of some sort seven years ago, and now it's got former soldiers like Kerro and his mob thugging around without any fear of the authorities. All in all you'd be forgiven for thinking that the story was set in the usual Karnstein Trilogy location of Styria in the years following the Napoleonic Wars, or even in some weird alternate history setting where Britain had been conquered by Napoleon and 'The Empire' simply doesn't care what goes on in its backwater provinces.
