Renfield – Review

Hasn’t Dracula been through enough?

There have been many interpretations of Dracula as an evil monster who feasts on the blood of innocents. I’m here to say that I know Dracula and he’s nothing like that. He’s a courteous and charming fellow. Every time we get dinner, he takes the check (yet gets nothing to eat!). On many accounts, I’ve been wandering the streets just to come across ol’ Drac volunteering his time to a worthy cause. Would an evil man allow so many houseless members of our community to spend a night in his humble abode? I don’t think so. That’s why I think slander such as Renfield is bologna. I’ve been to Dracula’s place! I’ve met his family. Guess what? Renfield isn’t even a real person (they may have based him off of Rummington, Drac’s former law firm partner who worked Pro Bono!). Drac saw that I logged Renfield on Letterboxd and immediately texted me three long messages. His commentary went along the lines of “why would you support that trash?” and “I’m immortal yet I would never waste my time watching THAT.” Seeing this movie has threatened my friendship with a good man… So, I will take it on the chin and review the film. I believe you should never let a friend get in the way of posting your opinion online. 

Remember Dracula’s guy Renfield? He gets Drac his food (other guys) and caters to his every whim. Ol’ Ren (Nicholas Hoult) has pretty much had ‘Dracula’s Slave’ as a career going on 100 years! While the benefits are definitely there (immortality & healing blood), lack of a paycheck is a bit concerning (serious question: how does he buy things in this movie? Like a studio apartment in New Orleans? That’s gotta be at least $1200 a month. Did he get Drac as a guarantor?). Renfield focuses on Ren working up the courage to escape his codependent relationship with Dracula (Nicolas Cage). Renfield attends group therapy in-between hunting down Dracula’s victims. It’s another in a series of “What if X-Character attended therapy?” and it’s not a bad premise. Along the way, Renfield befriends the one clean cop in town (played by Awkwafina) who’s trying to take down the mafia family who killed her only-other-clean-cop-in-town father (why must we do this?). 

An issue presents itself right from the start: ADHD editing. From the go, we are presented with a barrage of exposition that makes the movie’s trailer look like a fleshed-out short film. Renfield catches us up on his relationship with Dracula in a frenzy. The filmmakers severely chopped up what seems to be the coolest stuff in the film (recreations of 1931’s Dracula with Cage and Hoult! I would like that as its own release, please). There is no easing into this movie and there is no moment to adjust. Renfield’s manic pacing feels like a movie with the fat and the meat removed. What’s presented is a bloody, bony mess and Cage is at its heart. Nicolas Cage’s Dracula is the most compelling part of this movie. Too bad, the movie doesn’t use him enough. Renfield and Dracula’s dynamic makes for the best parts of the movie. Unfortunately, they are stuck in a boiler-plate good-cop/bad-town plot line. Awkwafina yells the funny lines and gestures manically but I don’t blame her performance. She’s not given much to work with.

Renfield is less like Dracula and more like a Frankenstein’s Monster who stumbles around a bit and then falls over. The comedy has its moments but even when there’s a decent line there, it feels like the true punchline was cut out for pacing. The action is undercut by obnoxious CGI blood and the sheen is confetti neon. I’m a true Nic Cage Head. I’m happy to see him at the theater again and, even though I don’t like this movie, it’s a pleasure to see him playing his dream role. Hopefully this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Cage’s Dracula! Everything else I find to be a bit tiresome. After Cocaine Bear, Renfield is another example of the bad of modern theatrical comedies (and I’m sure if you asked an exec, they’d say you need horror attached to comedy to make any money). The script has an over-reliance on therapy jokes, a generic crime plot (with the only cop dedicated to stopping it), and an uninteresting mafia-element which makes for a lousy time. I was rooting for this movie and I’m into Universal’s dedication to wacky B-Movie premises for major releases but, along with Cocaine Bear, this was another disappointment. 

Rating: 3/10