(Radu Jude, Romania/Austria/Luxembourg/Brazil/UK/Switzerland 2025, 170 min., DCP, Romanian, German, Spanish, French, Hungarian, and Latin with English subtitles)
Romanian New Wave director Radu Jude’s (Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn) latest provocation is an adaptation, or multiple adaptations, of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The film’s framing narrative shows a frustrated filmmaker behind a desk facing creative paralysis as he searches for an innovative take on the classic vampire novel. He turns to a generative AI chatbot to both create scripts in different styles as well as horrifically terrible images that might appeal to a prospective audience. From a wild chase through the streets of modern Transylvania to eerie hauntings in the Romanian countryside, Jude returns with another boundary-pushing epic featuring a union-busting Dracula breaking a strike, an adaptation of the first Romanian vampire novella, thwarted romance, fields of phalluses, lots of blood, and much, much more.