Give Them Blood, Blood, Gallons of the Stuff

Radu Jude's outrageous "Dracula" and the tightly wound "Anniversary" offer chilling reactions to the present moment.

New to cinemas this weekend are Dracula, an AI-assisted deconstruction of vampirism from Romania’s premier cinematic provocateur, and Anniversary, a bleak portrait of a family torn apart by an autocratic take over the United States that does not at all resemble real world events. But the scariest thing about this Halloweekend, as far as the movie business is concerned, is that this was the worst October at the box office in 27 years. Perhaps Jared Leto shouldn’t be starring in purported blockbusters!

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Anniversary

Now playing in wide release.

Owen Behan / Courtesy of Lionsgate.

For the second week in a row, I am reviewing a new movie that could be described as if it were After the Hunt. Anniversary also stars an Academy Award-nominee (Diane Lane, in this case) as a cloistered liberal arts professor who snubs one of her students, thus sparking an insidious national movement. Kyle Chandler has the Michael Stuhlbarg role as an embattled chef husband known for his cassoulet. And this is also a story about America told from the perspective of a European filmmaker. But in recognizing cancel culture hysteria to be a distraction from much graver threats to free expression, Anniversary is a far more potent warning, even if the drama is hampered by major flaws.

The anniversary being referred to is a 25th one, for the marriage between Ellen and Paul Taylor. She’s a Georgetown professor who defends academic orthodoxy on cable news; he’s the Bocuse-trained proprietor of a brasserie frequented by Senators. The professions of their progeny cement their status as a picture-perfect family of the liberal elite: an attorney (Zoey Deutch) whose husband (Daryl McCormack) forms the other half of an environmental law power couple, a brash stand-up comedian (Madeline Brewer), a teenage biology prodigy (Mckenna Grace), and a struggling novelist (Dylan O’Brien) who feels inadequate in comparison with the accomplishments of his siblings.

It’s that lone male heir who invites trouble into the family’s opulent home in the DC suburbs, where everyone has gathered for a celebration of this matrimonial milestone. He’s brought his new girlfriend Liz (Phoebe Dynevor) and her presence is immediately unsettling. One of the sisters remarks that “she doesn’t blink,” and her overly mannered expressions and porcelain tradwife stylings only increase the creepiness. For her part, Liz is also nervous, but for reasons beyond the usual meet the parents jitters: Ellen was once her thesis supervisor, at least until a public humiliation over its content eventually led the undergrad to drop out. Prima facie, this would seem a textbook case of an innocent student cancelled merely for expressing her beliefs. But perhaps it’s right to be disturbed when someone earnestly advocates for “overturning the Constitution in favor of a single-party government” in the name of “national unity.” The title of this apologia for autocracy? “The Change: Birth of a New Nation.” Dog, meet whistle.

As Taylor Swift once advised, “Don’t get sad, get even¹.” Since that academic flogging, Liz has refashioned herself into a millennial Peter Thiel. With the backing of a mysterious corporation, her aborted thesis has been reworked into an inspirational political tract that serves as the intellectual underpinning for a grassroots anti-democracy movement. The fact that Liz is now dating the son of the professor who once scorned her makes the personal out of the political.

Two years pass, and The Change has become a national phenomenon, and Ellen has a front row seat to witness just how democracy dies: with thunderous applause. As the country falls into fascism under the pretense of rising above partisan politics, each member of her family responds differently to this new world order. Some submit, some retreat, some resist. One of them will resort to a more direct form of rebellion.

The Polish filmmaker Jan Komasa, who directed the Oscar-nominated Corpus Christi, conceived of this story well before the Second Trump Administration, giving Anniversary and uncanny prescience. (The screenplay was written by Lori Rosene-Gambino, based on the director’s original concept.) But as this family falls apart, so too does the film. The specifics don’t really hold up to scrutiny, and the politics of The Change are syncretic at best. Unlike historical examples of successful authoritarian takeovers, it is a faceless movement that lacks a unifying cult of personality. It appears to transcend religious and ethnic divides but emphasizes the importance of “heritage.” To be fair, we only witness these events through a limited perspective; who knows who they came for before knocking on the door of this family of white elites.

Perhaps we are missing the forest for the trees, quibbling with the mechanics instead of reckoning with the results. Unless you are the average Bluesky user, it may seem far-fetched that America could turn into a fully totalitarian state, as depicted in Komasa’s film, where the intelligentsia have been purged and internet bandwidth is rationed. But it’s a lot like growing old: you don’t realize it’s happened until you look at an old family photograph, taken in happier times. More unforgivable are plot contrivances that saddle this fine ensemble of actors with histrionics and genuinely laughable dialogue. Faring best are Chandler and Dynevor, respectively the chef husband and neo-fascist intellectual. The former succeeds due to his portrayal of an embattled decency broken down to heartbreaking emptiness, the latter because she is most able to lean into the off-putting vibes.

To say that Anniversary is a bleak movie is an understatement, and it’s underscored by a lethally potent needle drop. On the night of the soirée that opens this film, Paul and Ellen put on “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” a 1980s pop rock song from the Australian-New Zealand band Crowded House. The lyrics tell the story of a relationship straining against the backdrop of a world gone wrong. By the end of the film, five years have passed and The Change has claimed total victory over American society. Their son, now empowered as a leader of this dystopia, has organized a 30th anniversary party for his parents. (It has all the joie de vivre of a hostage video.) He plays “Don’t Dream It’s Over” over the speakers and commands them to slow dance.

Not even their favorite song can bring life back into their eyes. The chorus is meant to be a declaration of resolve: “When the world comes in / They come… / To build a wall between us / We know they won’t win².” It becomes a taunt: don’t dream. It’s over. The bad guys won. And it still gets worse.

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Dracula

Now playing in limited release.

Courtesy of 1-2 Special.

“I am Vlad Dracula the Impaler and you can suck my cock!”

Thus begins this delightfully tasteless vampire movie from Romanian provocateur Radu Jude. These are just some of the words that have been used to describe it: garish, bizarre, profane, vulgar, fucking nuts. They are mostly meant as compliments, which befits a project that originally began as a joke. Jude, who hails from Transylvania, would sarcastically pitch a homegrown version of Dracula to prospective producers and financiers, only to find that it would receive more interest than his actual ideas. His response has arrived in the form of a three-hour long cinematic shitpost.

There have been many adaptations, remakes, and ripoffs of the Bram Stoker novel, going back to the very beginnings of this artform³. But this is the first one that deconstructs the vampire myth while bombarding the viewer with puerile imagery. This movie has everything: a rural priest pleasuring himself with a magic dildo, a Popeye nipple tattoo, and an AI-generated vampiric threesome.

The film consists of twelve chapters ensconced in a metafictional framing device. Struggling with making a Dracula movie, a young Romanian filmmaker (not played by the director himself, though Jude does make a Hitchcockian cameo at one point) turns to an AI chatbot to generate different scenarios. (A One Thousand and One Prompts joke can be made.) These form the basis for each of the film’s vignettes, which are mostly filmed with real humans. In one, the titular vampire attends a tour of his old home, responding with indignance at all the inaccuracies. In another, he’s the owner of a shady video game company and brutally puts down a worker uprising. Interspersed throughout is a parallel storyline about a vampire cabaret act that ends with the audience of tourists chasing Dracula and Vampira through the streets of Transylvania.

While most of the film was made with human actors, some segments and shots were created by AI tools. The warping, grotesque results have a deliriously surreal effect, especially in contrast with the lo-fi iPhone cinematography of the IRL scenes. The use of AI in filmmaking has been a hot topic ever since Midjourney was first unveiled, and the technology has improved so quickly that what we see in this film (made a year ago) is already outdated. Bleeding edge video models like Sora are nearly photorealistic, which makes their output boring. Just as with humans, it’s the mistakes that are compelling⁴.

Despite (or because of) all its perversions, Dracula is dense with references to Romanian history while also speaking to present-day anxieties. (Really, it’s just like Jude’s other films, including the sexually explicit material.) Vlad Țepeș, then and now, has been co-opted by the far right as a nationalist symbol. And in Jude’s telling, capitalism and AI are the modern vampires of this century. But as fun as it is to describe, I cannot stress enough that despite being catnip for certain breed of cinephile (it me), this was a pretty punishing watch. Not to mix monster metaphors, but this Dracula is a Frankensteined mishmash of slop, eventually instilling the same level of brainrot being lampooned.

Tasting Notes: How to Eat Blood

In the words of My Chemical Romance: “give me blood, blood / gallons of the stuff.” It is a delicacy off-putting to many, but I enjoy eating blood in modest amounts. (I swear I’m not a vampire.) Pig blood curd is an essential topping for bún bò Huế, and I once bought a pint of sanguinaccio, an Italian chocolate pudding laced with blood. A couple years ago at one of my famous Oscars dinners, in honor of The Banshees of Inisherin I served blackpudding (Irish blood sausage) with a side of colcannon and roasted carrots.

Bún bò Huế that I had in San Jose | Blackpudding, colcannon, carrot

Here’s a Romanian food pairing for this Romanian vampire movie: sear a link of sângerete (the Romanian variety of blood sausage) and serve it on top of a bed of mămăligă (maize polenta) with sour cream and Telemea cheese on the side. I won’t judge if you suck on Dracula’s sausage. Wash it down with Țuică, the traditional plum brandy.

It would be extremely hard to source all of these in New York, but you can get close enough. Mildly spiced blood sausage (i.e. non-Latin) can be found at certain butchers, including Schaller & Weber and Myers of Keswick. Spanish morcilla works too; hit up Despaña or Mercado Central. You can cook Italian polenta a bit thicker than normal, and feta can substitute for the local Telemea.

1. Indeed, Liz is dressing for revenge. The colors of her outfits track with her character’s rise to power: clad in demure turquoise at the start, wrapped in shiny crimson by film’s end.

2. When I first heard “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” I misheard one of the lines as “To build a war between us,” which I think is more poetic.

3. I watched many of them last year in preparation for the Robert Eggers version of Nosferatu and found myself all vampired out.

4. A similar example: these ideas for Halloween costumes, which came from an intentionally low-rent large language model. These strung together phrases are potentially generative to the human imagination. I’d love to see someone dress up as “Moth fairy” or “Kpop Bader Ginsburg.”