Movie Reviews

‘Renfield’ review: A real monster mash

Let’s eat!

April 14, 2023

Renfield opens with a fun religion-battles-the-dark-forces scene, evoking some Castlevania vibes, followed quickly by some black and white backstory where Dracula gets to ham it up Nosferatu-style. The horror comedy focusing on Dracula’s familiar stars Nicholas Hoult as Renfield, Nicholas Cage as Dracula, and Awkwafina as Rebecca Quincy, a New Orleans Police Officer. The film is funny enough and the excellent cast and characters have undoubtedly exhumed Universal’s monster franchise in a great way. But in the end it’s a bit of a mixed bag.

[Warning: spoilers throughout]

Renfield, the movie, has a central problem: how to make the audience root for the main character, Renfield, who is essentially a sad, depressing, horrible monster of a person. The plot of this movie takes place over the course of seemingly only a few days. That’s not a lot of time to get to know Renfield. Instead, the action never lets up and we’re greeted with a number of mini bosses. In fact, the film juggles a number of different tones and plot lines: we have a heartfelt drama, a police procedural, a vampire horror, and all of this between some pretty good comedy and lots and lots of gory fighting action.

At times, the action felt gratuitous and unnecessary. As though it was just a lazy way to drive the movie forward, especially because it was so over-the-top bloody and nonsensical. Sometimes this made the action fun, distracting, and even hilarious. Of course, there was some imaginative gore and set pieces too. But I mean, there’s more blood in most action scenes of this movie than there was in the opening scene of Blade. However, the blood shower scene of Blade was imaginative and memorable.

In Renfield, for every fun or funny action scene there was another where I felt bored or taken out of the movie. I also got filmic whiplash from the other tones and plot lines which were incongruent and didn’t quite gel. Some of the incongruities felt like movie shorthand run amok due to the movie trying to jam too much in, rather than idiosyncratic stylistic choices.

Let’s dig into the plot further. Renfield, the character, has to do horrible things for his master, to whom he’s enthralled, although in this case the enthrallment seems to be wearing off… Or was never there to begin with. According to the movie, we are supposed to believe that Renfield has been Dracula’s familiar only because he was emotionally and physically manipulated by Dracula. This makes Renfield’s visits to a support group more believable and relatable at the expense of some vampiric magic lore. Still, the support group is a pretty funny plot device and is largely used to good affect.

Renfield quickly becomes embroiled in an accidental beef with New Orleans’ most powerful and violent crime family. They are so powerful that they hack the NSA in order to identify and track Renfield and apparently have the entire police department of New Orleans on their payroll. Except for one officer: Rebecca Quincy.

Quincy is investigating the crime family when she crosses paths with Renfield at a restaurant. In the wrong place at the wrong time, the crime family’s goons descend on them. Renfield eats a bug, which allows him to tap into some of Dracula’s awesome power, and with Quincy’s help takes down the goons. Note that Renfield’s powers are just clichéd Matrix-style wire-fu. The movie doesn’t have time for anything else; it must use movie shorthand wherever it can so supernatural Dracula/bug powers = fighting real good and with extra strength. At the end of the battle, Renfield is hailed as a hero by the public and Renfield starts to think he really can break free from Dracula. To that end, he somehow finds time to rent his own apartment and furnish it.

'Renfield' review: A real monster mash

Of course, Quincy herself has a backstory: we learn that her father was a police officer who died in the line of duty trying to bring down this very same crime family. Meanwhile, the crime family’s goons storm Dracula’s lair. They all die except for the son of the crime boss who manages to get on Dracula’s good side because Dracula has recently cooked up a scheme to take over the world.

Did I mention this whole movie takes place over the course of what seems like a few days? It’s pretty exhausting how much they jam in here and you can imagine how much care and detail can be given to all of these different plot points and characters. In place of a satisfying story with fleshed out characters they upped the stakes and gore and violence.

To its credit, throughout the movie we have some fun and relatively subtle nods to vampire lore. We have some funny set pieces and a beautifully hammy Cage as Dracula all decked out in perfect costumes and really great makeup. The few moments where Dracula explodes in magical, scary, Castlevania-style violence are genuinely fun and memorable.

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Vampire’s Kiss’ crazy Cage performance doesn’t quite make an appearance here. Perhaps that performance was a miracle of happenstance, low budget, and convergence of talent. In Renfield, we see Cage’s attempt to call forth a more ancient, mature, and godlike lunacy which does still harken back to Vampire’s Kiss.

That said, the nods to deeper character growth for Renfield are nice, but ultimately hollow. I often felt as though I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to focus on and Renfield himself was often not present, left aside for one of the many other developing plot lines and character arcs.

This wasn’t Nicholas Hoult’s fault either. I would have loved to see the Renfield character-study of a broken, ancient man finally making a personal breakthrough in a modern support group. Nicholas Hoult’s charismatic performance here clearly shows he could carry such a film. Instead, I am given whiplash when Renfield’s backstory is randomly revealed here and there between gory action set pieces and multiple converging plot lines.

Universal could learn a thing or two from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves on how to translate comedic fantasy action into a more memorable and satisfying whole. Renfield has all of the necessary parts, but ultimately stretches itself too thin. That said, Cage’s Dracula as seen in Renfield is, in my opinion, capable of singlehandedly bringing back Universal’s monster franchise. All three of the main characters are charismatic, compelling, and fun to watch. The movie was a mess, but it was far from bad and I absolutely want to see more of these characters played specifically by these actors. Perhaps in a sequel they can achieve the glory that Cage’s Dracula proclaims, “I am the dark poetry in all humanity!”