The new film by Radu Jude is not a mere adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel nor just another reinterpretation of the famous vampire. It is an irreverent and expansive exercise that, under its façade of unbridled comedy and audiovisual collage, reveals itself as a vibrant essay on contemporary cinema, the times we live in, and our relationship with images. Far from seeking a “definitive version” of the story, Jude uses it as a pretext to explore today’s culture, its tensions and contradictions, its endless capacity for recycling, and its voracious appetite for the ephemeral. From the very first shot, it becomes clear we are not dealing with a solemn homage. The film opens with a series of AI-generated portraits of Vlad Țepeș, each one repeating an obscene phrase to the viewer. It’s an opening that works as a statement of intent: AI is here not to replace the filmmaker, but to expose the parasitic and repetitive nature of our visual culture. In Jude’s hands, technology becomes a critical tool, able to show—with all its awkwardness and glitches—that appropriation, distortion, and the emptying of meaning have been happening for centuries. The main plot follows a young director who, after an unfavorable audience test, decides to “rescue” his vampire film by turning to a Transylvanian bot. What follows is a succession of episodes that rewrite and deform the Dracula myth in every possible direction: a Nosferatu invaded by spam ads, a capitalist Vlad exploiting workers to sell video game accounts, a tourist museum where history is reduced to souvenirs, or a delirious erotic tale inspired by Romanian folklore. Each piece has its own tone and aesthetic, and together they form a mosaic that may look improvised, but actually obeys a clear logic: to show how stories survive by devouring one another.

Artificial intelligence is, undoubtedly, a constant presence, but it is not the center of the film. Jude avoids both apocalyptic discourse and technological fascination; instead, he uses it as a catalyst for ideas. By exposing its limitations—deformed images, poorly assembled bodies, textures bordering on the grotesque—he turns AI into a metaphor for a cultural system that feeds on fragments of the past regardless of coherence. The funniest scenes do not come from its digital “accuracy,” but from its absolute imperfection, from its inability to reproduce the human spark. Thus, the artificial does not replace the real: it parodies it, exaggerates it, strips it bare. Another central axis of the film is the relationship between Romania and the Dracula myth. With biting humor, Jude portrays Transylvanian tourism, an industry that has turned Vlad into a global brand and his history into a spectacle. One recurring storyline takes place in a decaying theater where an “immersive” experience is staged: visitors chase an actor dressed as Dracula through the streets, amidst sexual jokes and moments of genuine delirium. It’s a mocking portrayal of how historical heritage (or not so historical, in this case) is turned into banal entertainment, and how local communities negotiate with an image exported to the world. For some, Stoker is a goldmine; for others, a superficial distortion that hides a far richer history. This Dracula is both critique and celebration, an acknowledgment that, while the myth may simplify and trivialize a culture, it also grants visibility and resources. This ambiguity runs throughout Jude’s work, always suspended between affection and satire. Here, Radu Jude cites Beckett and Eco with the same ease with which he includes torch-wielding chases, double-entendre dialogues, and animated dildos. Nothing is sacred: neither high culture nor low, neither official history nor cinema itself in this feast of liberties. Shot largely on iPhone, as in his previous films, and supported by minimal sets, it combines cheap digital aesthetics with archival footage, theatrical re-enactments, and AI-generated animations. This contrast of textures underscores the mutating nature of the project, which advances like a variety show: musical numbers, sketches, impossible adaptations, philosophical monologues, visual gags. The feeling is that of watching several films at once, all coexisting in the same chaotic space. In Dracula, this dispersion is not a flaw: it is part of the concept. Jude understands that we live in a constant flow of images and narratives that intermingle without hierarchy. In that sense, Dracula is profoundly contemporary: it mirrors the cultural zapping in which we are all immersed, that natural coexistence of the sublime and the ridiculous, the historical and the banal. The film itself becomes an ecosystem where Chaplin and TikTok, Ceaușescu and OnlyFans, Gothic literature and digital memes can all share the frame.

At the same time, Dracula carries a broad political reading. The vampire, as a figure that feeds on others to survive, becomes a symbol of systems of exploitation that go beyond the myth. Jude links Vlad to unscrupulous businessmen, extractive industries, and capitalist logics that drain human and cultural resources. Even cinema itself, he suggests, is a vampire that regenerates by appropriating other forms and contents. The comedy in Jude’s film—shameless, sexual, grotesque—does not cancel out its reflective dimension. He can jump from an obscene joke to a philosophical quote without shifting tone, from a physical gag to a historical commentary. This balance is key to preventing the film from becoming either an academic exercise or just a provocation show. Its irreverence does not seek gratuitous scandal but rather to open cracks in preconceived ideas, to force the audience to see the familiar from unexpected angles.