Director Used AI Because It’s ‘Gross and Slimy’ for Dracula Film

Radu Jude has cemented his reputation as one of contemporary cinema’s most provocative and divisive voices. The Romanian writer-director first captured international attention by winning the top prize at the Berlin International Film Festival for his 2021 film, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn. That darkly comedic story follows a teacher whose life unravels after a private sex tape she made with her husband leaks online. Filmed on the desolate streets of Bucharest during pandemic lockdowns, the movie powerfully conveyed the strange emptiness of cities and featured real residents hurling insults at the cast and crew. His subsequent 2023 project, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, explored a different facet of modern disconnection. Its protagonist, Angela, works a draining day job producing questionable corporate safety videos while spending her free time on TikTok performing as a character inspired by the controversial figure Andrew Tate.

While his stories are deeply rooted in the specific cultural context of Eastern Europe, Jude’s work resonates with a universal sense of digital-age anxiety. His films capture the profound disorientation of living a life perpetually connected to the internet. By blending sophisticated philosophical themes with crude, lowbrow humor, he has cultivated a dedicated following among film festival audiences who appreciate his uniquely absurd and cynical perspective, a style that sits at a curious intersection between the French New Wave and 1990s cartoon nihilism. With his newest cinematic endeavor, simply titled Dracula, Jude appears determined to test the loyalty of his staunchest supporters.

Scheduled for release on October 29, Dracula takes the classic Romanian folklore and deliberately processes it through an artificial intelligence lens, both conceptually and in its actual production. The film’s narrative centers on a struggling filmmaker who is commissioned to create a major vampire movie. Facing a severe creative block, he turns to an AI application, feeding it a series of prompts. The AI then generates the various short films that make up the body of the feature. These segments range wildly in content: one shows an actor from an erotic stage adaptation of Dracula being pursued by an angry mob of tourists, while another reimagines the Count as a deranged supervisor managing a team of tech employees. The film does not shy away from graphic violence and gore, and it features an abundance of explicit nudity, presented through both live-action and animated sequences.

(Source: Wired)