'Dracula' goes on a mad romp

Radu Jude’s latest satire targets AI and capitalism, but it might leave you feeling drained.

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SET IN a modern Transylvania, “Dracula” features a variety of stories and sketches based on the bloodsucker.

(Saga Film)

As attention spans keep getting whittled down, intellectually impish Romanian satirist Radu Jude continues to go longer and longer, his latest act of cinematic disobedience the nearly three-hour myth buster “Dracula.”

But you will not be getting a worshipful retelling of author Bram Stoker's horror classic. For that, call Francis Ford Coppola. Rather, Jude has Frankensteined together a grab bag of notions about the vampire saga that is his country’s most well-known cultural export — originating with real-life medieval slaughterer Vlad the Impaler, but most famously immortalized by a 19th century Irish author. Jude turns it into a vaudeville that, even at its most entertaining, is best described by a common bat-related term that’s more scatological.