Renfield

Director: Chris McKay
Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Awkwfina, Ben Schwartz, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Brandon Scott Jones, Adrian Martinez, Camille Chen
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Runtime: 93 mins. Reviewed in Jun 2023
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes: Strong impact blood and gore

Dracula and his servant, Renfield, find themselves in modern New Orleans, and tangle with a drug-dealing family.

Absolute mayhem and splatter… And that is just the first 10 minutes. In fact, that describes the whole of the film. It is a blend of comedy/parody and gory violence that somehow rather keeps the balance between the two making it all rather entertaining for movie buffs. Which means that audiences not Dracula fans need not read on – unless they are curious to know what is happening to Dracula in the 21st-century.

Dracula has fallen on hard times with Renfield not being able to supply him with sufficient blood. Dracula is deteriorating and he and Renfield, his servant (we remember that he was the one who went to Transylvania to do a real estate deal with Dracula and found himself enslaved) have moved to New Orleans, a hideout in an abandoned warehouse which, unfortunately for Dracula and Renfield as well as the dealers, is a centre for drug distribution.

On the one hand, this is a parody of gangsters and corrupt police, and we are surprised to find serious actress for many years, Aghdashloo, enjoying herself as a tough matriarch. Awkwafina is a local officer, confined to street barriers, estranged from her sister, but conscientious.

On the other hand, Renfield has become tired of Dracula’s impositions and has started going to a self-help group, and studying a book about how to deal with narcissistic monsters (which Dracula denies and ridicules). Somehow or other, the vampire story intersects with the gangster story. Lots of shootouts. Lots of fights, over-the-top mayhem with severed limbs flying.

Cage is obviously enjoying himself as Dracula, sometimes a look of Bela Lugosi, sometimes the manner of Christopher Lee, sometimes the walk and hunch of Nosferatu, and relishing Dracula’s tone of voice and utterances as well as dominating poor Renfield (an engaging performance from Hoult), insinuating himself into the drug family to acquire more power, abducting Awkwafina’s sister, destroying lots of thugs, but also destroying the earnest self-help group.

Of course, it builds to a climax, but Dracula makes the mistake of forgetting that a drop of his blood will enliven Renfield – Awkwafina tricking Dracula and a happy ending and, spoiler alert, Renfield able to revive the whole self-help group so that they can continue.

Tongue-in-cheek, a great deal of inventiveness in the story and the writing, the director relishing all the twists and turns. Stay for the final credits because it is all there in summary again and a chance to contemplate Nicolas Cage as Dracula! And, confirming with one blogger that really it is all very gory – and endearing (more than guilty pleasure).