In 1993, invited by David Lynch to come up with a low-budget genre movie, filammaker Michael Almereyda recombined characters from Bram Stoker and set them loose in contemporary New York. The result? A cult classic known simply as Nadja. 

Nadja (Elina Löwensohn) is a disillusioned “young” vampire who imagines herself liberated by the death of her father, Count Dracula, but the unhinged Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Fonda) wants to destroy her as well, interrupting her reunion with twin brother Edgar (Jared Harris) and pursuing them into “a netherworld of shadows” (J. Hoberman).

Part seductive reverie, part spoof, Nadja is a delirious mashup of Andre Breton’s 1928 surrealist novel of the same name and Universal Pictures’ Dracula’s Daughter (1936). Simon Fisher Turner’s ethereal score is offset by propulsive pop songs from My Bloody Valentine, The Verve, and Space Hog.

Executive producer Lynch fully financed the film when other investors faded out and even has a cameo as a hypnotized morgue attendant. This 4K restoration was generated from the print in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the version of the film that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1994, three minutes longer than the commercial release.