Universal Studio’s horror characters are icons for a reason. Coming out in a series of interconnected films in the 30s and 40s, creating the first cinematic universe, the likes of the Wolf-Man, Frankenstein’s monster and his Bride, the Mummy, and Count Dracula have been beloved figures for the better part of a century. However, Universal’s various attempts to reboot these characters into a “Dark Universe” lasted all of one movie, but times have changed a bit. The Invisible Man took the original basic concept and updated it to a concern for a more modern age. That would suggest a way forward is not to try and recreate the old movies into some sort of action franchise with monsters in it, but to take the characters and recreate them in more original ways.
That is pretty much what happened with the new movie Renfield where Dracula’s bug-eating assistant gets the spotlight in a more comedic sort of story.
Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) has been serving his master Count Dracula (Nicholas Cage) for far longer than he wanted to, and every time his master gets a little too ambitious and monstrous, hunters show up, Dracula is badly injured but survives, and the pair have to move to a new location while Dracula heals. That latest move is to modern day New Orleans. Dracula’s finances aren’t what they used to be, and while he recovers in an abandoned hospital, Renfield is to go off and bring back innocent victims for Dracula to feed off. Renfield has taken to spending time with a support group for people in co-dependent relationships, and he actually thinks the thing to do is take the abusive narcissists his support group have to deal with to his master, all while realizing he himself is in the same sort of relationship. As a familiar, Renfield can access a portion of Dracula’s great power by eating live bugs, but that’s about all he can do to empower himself in any way.
However, his latest attempt to find some victims for Dracula goes poorly as the men in question are wanted by a local mob for stealing the mob’s drugs. That puts Renfield in the sights of Teddy Lobo (Ben Schwartz), the inept son of the dangerous mob boss Bellafrancesca (Shohreh Aghdashloo). Local traffic cop Rebecca Darcy (Awkwafina) wants to bring the Lobos down as they murdered her hero cop father, but she can’t quite get anything to stick. When Rebecca and Renfield cross paths, Renfield finds a bit of backbone. Now, can he get away from Dracula? And what happens when the Count gets very ambitious?
I was looking forward to this one. Hoult and Awkawafina are both talented and charismatic comedic actors, and the story came from Walking Dead/Invincible writer Robert Kirkman. The basic premise is original, and there were a few moments I did laugh out loud. However, the laughs were not consistent enough for me, and most of them were a product of the movie’s more gory style of slapstick, where Renfield’s or Dracula’s abilities cause all kind of bloody mayhem. There are attempts, like showing the pale Renfield dressed in colorful pastels, that I imagine were intended to be funny but never quite worked for me as much as I wanted it to.
That said, Cage is a hoot in this movie. He’s clearly having a ball, and watching his Dracula react to Renfield’s rather feeble attempts at independence make for many of the movie’s highlights. He’s actually made up to look as much like Bela Lugosi’s Dracula as it is possible to make him, with the right clothes, hair, make-up, and even the lighting on his face coming across so much as Lugosi’s original turn as the cinematic Count as it was possible to get without a lot of prosthetic make-up a la Martin Landau in Ed Wood. Additionally, this is apparently a world where Dracula’s existence is maybe common knowledge, and watching Cage be the boss from a literal hell was what I wanted from this movie. Granted, this is Renfield’s movie, so Dracula’s not in it as much as I would have liked, but whenever Cage sauntered out, the movie really took off. Renfield may not be a great movie, but Nicholas Cage, as he often does, makes it fun whenever he’s onscreen.
Grade: C+
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