The setting is Carpathia. The year is 1851. When Elvira gets kicked out of an Inn for a slight monetary discrepancy, she is rescued by a local who takes her to stay at the castle in the hills high above the village. The fact that she happens to resemble the count's former "missing" wife opens a can of worms or two.
No animals die in the movie, but, SPOILER ALERT, since at the end of the movie Elvira is told that the castle where she and her servant spent the night was destroyed a hundred years ago, everyone there, including the horses and a cat that is heard but not seen, have already died a hundred years ago.