‘Renfield’: Review

Dir: Chris McKay. US. 2023. 93mins

Almost a century after it first brought Bram Stoker’s bloodsucker Dracula to cinemas in Tod Browning’s now-classic 1931 feature, Universal returns its most famous gothic monster to the big screen — this time in a high-octane action-comedy-horror which leans fully into the bloody mayhem of the centuries-old vampire loose in modern day New Orleans. No matter that this story ostensibly follows his titular long-serving (and long-suffering) familiar Renfield (Nicholas Hoult); Nicolas Cage’s full-tilt, high-camp Dracula steals the show. That raises the stakes in a film which otherwise relies heavily on snappy editing, lavish effects and relentlessly ironic humour to paper over a clunky and underwritten story.

Cage chews both flesh and the scenery with infectious abandon

Renfield should nevertheless do well for Universal when it opens across multiple territories including the UK and US on April 14, thanks in no small part to Cage’s extensive fanbase and the evergreen appeal of the vampire narrative. Offering edgier adult counter-programming to the more family friendly The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Dungeons And Dragons: Honour Among Thieves — the latter’s story written by Renfield’s director Chris McKay — should also help attract audiences.

A lovely black and white prologue, which seamlessly grafts Hoult and Cage into scenes from Browning’s 1931 classic, explains how Robert Montague Renfield, then a property lawyer looking for a lucrative deal, first met Dracula and was coerced into becoming his familiar. This sequence effectively sets out the stall of a screenplay by Ryan Ridley (TV’s Rick and Morty) which has genuine affection for the tenets of Dracula mythology — something that’s also reflected in the snatches of Tchaikovsky’s ’Swan Lake’, which opened the 1931 film, peppered throughout the otherwise energetic score —  but takes a blunt-edged approach when transplanting them to contemporary New Orleans, a city depicted as being built on voodoo, corruption and unfettered public drinking.

It’s a fitting location for Renfield to find himself in a moral minefield, torn between his loyalty to his overbearing master, for whom he is forced to offer up an endless supply of fresh meat, and his growing desire to be a decent human being. This emotional conflict drives him to a support group for people in narcissistic relationships, which delivers a series of gags around confronting one’s demons. Renfield’s determination to break free of Dracula’s toxic influence grows stronger when he meets Rebecca Quincy (a sharp-tongued Awkwafina, who brings a wry levity to proceedings). Quincy is a police officer determined to rid the city of the nefarious Lobo criminal gang, led by the enigmatic Bellafrancesca (Shohreh Aghdashloo), which has the city under its thumb – and its own undercooked plotline tacked onto the screenplay.

The spark Renfield feels for Rebecca intensifies his psychological tussles, which could have added some depth to proceedings. Yet the film favours broad strokes over dramatic nuance, and Renfield’s own monstrous tendencies, which made him susceptible to Dracula’s charms and turn his back on his own family, are touched upon but never fully explored. In the end, it all boils down to that familiar battle between good and evil, which here translates to a string of extended (and visually repetitive) action sequences in which Renfield, hopped up on the insects he eats to boost his vampiric super-strength, forgoes his good intentions and lets loose on a string of villains. The effects (both practical and visual) are undoubtedly impressive; limbs come off, heads fly across the screen and blood spurts in geysers. Horror fans will lap it up — as, one assumes, would Dracula, given half a chance.

Yet the main man is disappointingly absent during much of the action; unsurprising, perhaps, given that this is supposedly Renfield’s movie. But as likeable as Hoult is in the undeniably foppish role, he’s no match for Cage, who is having an absolute ball from start to finish. Famously a fan of gothic horror and the vampire in particular — he produced Shadow Of The Vampire and starred in 1988’s Vampire’s Kiss — Cage certainly makes the most of this opportunity to embody his icon. Channeling former cinematic Draculas Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee while adding his own trademark mania, the actor chews both flesh and the scenery with infectious abandon and imbues his dark lord with animalistic ferocity and playful sarcasm. The rest of the film can’t help but fall to dust around him.