Bruno Stroszek is released from prison and warned to stop drinking. He has few skills and fewer expectations: with a glockenspiel and an accordion, he ekes out a living as a street musician. He befriends Eva, a prostitute down on her luck and they join his neighbor, Scheitz, an elderly eccentric, when he leaves Germany to live in Wisconsin.

Ghoulish Count Dracula lures a naive estate agent, Jonathan Harker, to his decaying Transylvanian castle with the promise of easy money. But when he spies a portrait of the man’s beautiful young wife Lucy, the vampire becomes obsessed and sets in motion their destruction.