With the release of Chris McKay’s Renfield, Nicolas Cage joins the likes of Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Gary Oldman and Adam Sandler, who have all played the most famous vampire in the world: Count Dracula. Surely an actor as maverick and talented as Cage could bring something new to the role – particularly in a comedy-horror setting, where Drac is being nursed back to full strength in present-day New Orleans, by his long-suffering and little-respected assistant Renfield. Surely. Surely?!
No disrespect to Nicholas Hoult, who plays the put-upon servant who is usually portrayed as an insect-eating, mentally unstable minion of the Dark Lord, but the prospect of Cage playing Dracula was a huge selling point for Renfield. An iconic character, an iconic character — cut, print, check. Unfortunately the characterisation of Dracula here — a live-action version of The Count from Sesame Street rather than a chilling manifestation of evil — speaks to the wider problems with Renfield, written by Ryan Ridley (who previously worked on Rick and Morty and Community). While the film is ostensibly about Renfield’s attempts to free himself from the grip of Dracula, this interesting plotline is lost as the film opts to add a romantic plot between Renfield and local police officer Rebecca Quincy (Awkafina) who is trying to take down the local criminal gang who murdered her father five years previously.
This decision means we don’t really get as much of Renfield and Dracula as the film’s premise suggests — they only share a few scenes together, and there is little done to establish how Renfield has been impacted by 80 years of grusome servitude. Hoult is perfectly capable, but there isn’t much for him to, ahem, sink his teeth into. A few cursory mentions of his former wife and daughter do little to convey what Renfield gave up to serve Dracula, and Quincy — a stock love interest — seems completely unbothered by the discovery that vampires are real, let alone the fact she’s falling for one. We learn little of Renfield’s personality beyond his submission to Dracula, making his freedom an underwhelming proposition.
The film’s slapstick ultra violence and gore are perhaps intended as shorthand for Dracula’s depravity, but the constant undercutting of this with ‘Woah, isn’t this whacky!’ humour means the impact is quickly dulled, and what could have been a charming odd couple film about a supernatural break-up is tonally mismatched, not quite a comedy, not quite a horror, not quite a crime caper, not quite a romance.
It’s bad form as a critic to review the film you wish you saw instead of the one you did, but in the case of Renfield, it does feel like so much potential was wasted here, both in the story and the cast. A tighter focus on Renfield and Dracula — perhaps following their exploits over decades, ala Interview with the Vampire — would have felt more fleshed out, and allowed Hoult more room to show Renfield’s mental disintergration and eventual emancipation.
What we actually have in Renfield is a film that feels poorly conceived and lazily executed — a forgettable entry into the Dracula Cinematic Universe, that might pass the time but really doesn’t offer us anything to chew on.
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ANTICIPATION.
Not sure about the quirky humour in the trailer, but Cage as Dracula is too good to pass up. 3
ENJOYMENT.
Raises a few smiles but feels like a lot of wasted potential. 3
IN RETROSPECT.
Forgettable take on an iconic monster and his tragic lackey. 2
Directed by
Chris McKay
Starring
Nicolas Cage, Nicholas Hoult, Awkwafina
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