Movie Review: RENFIELD

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: April 14th, 2023 / 03:32 AM

RENFIELD movie poster | ©2023 Universal Pictures

Stars: Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz, Shohreh Agdashloo, Brandon Scott Jones, Adrian Martinez
Writer: Ryan Ridley, story by Robert Kirkman
Director: Chris McKay
Distributor: Universal
Release Date: April 14, 2023

There have been innumerable takes on Dracula and those who surround him. In many versions of the tale, including Bram Stoker’s original novel, Dracula’s primary henchman is Renfield.

RENFIELD, told from that character’s point of view, omits his time in the lunatic asylum and instead has him as Dracula’s (Nicolas Cage) primary facilitator, arranging for things like meals (i.e., murder victims), lodging, and transportation. In return, Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) gets a bit of his master’s superpowers, but not much of a life. This fact is dawning on him as RENFIELD begins.

Renfield catches us up on how he’s saved Dracula from aspiring saviors of humanity over the last century or so. Then we’re in New Orleans. Renfield explains in voiceover that Dracula’s usual pattern is to recover from his previous big battle, take it easy for a bit, and then stage such a violent blow-out that the two of them have to run and start over somewhere else.

When one’s boss entirely dictates one’s life, that qualifies as a co-dependent relationship. So, Renfield joins a support group for other people who seem to be unable to disentangle themselves from toxic romances and the like. When Renfield attempts to help one of his support group peers by feeding her awful boyfriend to Dracula, he unknowingly steps into a local gang war involving the Lobo crime family.

New Orleans police officer Rebecca (Awkwafina) is determined to bring down the Lobos, even though she has been stuck on traffic duty. Rebecca is understandably suspicious of some unusual goings-on, even if she has no idea what’s really happening.

Director Chris McKay is of the Sam Raimi/early Peter Jackson school that gore should be extreme and funny, and probably extremely funny, and so RENFIELD is as blood-soaked as any EVIL DEAD outing. Assuming one gets this type of humor, it is consistently on target.

But RENFIELD has unexpected charms as well. Writer Ryan Ridley, working from a story by Robert Kirkman, has crafted a plot that weaves its disparate elements together in a way that feels almost inevitable.

Further, we see Renfield falling for Rebecca not because of her appearance, but because of her unassailable moral rectitude. Even with all the dedicated vampire hunters he’s helped vanquish, Renfield has never before encountered someone with Rebecca’s total and grouchy conviction, and it transforms him.

For those who somehow don’t feel that they’ve waited all their lives to get to see someone like Awkwafina play a full-on hero, and have that character be depicted as desirable, this won’t be a big deal. For those like this reviewer, it’s delightful call for celebration.

Hoult does justice to the varied aspects of Renfield – cowed assistant, emotional wreck, self-help novice, and action badass. We like spending time with him and seeing how he variously copes and panics with each new development.

Other standouts in the cast are Brandon Scott Jones as the sweet leader of the support group, Shohreh Agdashloo as a classy mob boss, and Ben Schwartz as her brash son.

But of course, the big question here is, how does Nicolas Cage score as Dracula? It’s a role that allows Cage to fly – literally – and he rises to the occasion. Encased in all sorts of makeup (Dracula is healing throughout the movie, and it’s a messy process), Cage inhabits every guise and makes it work for him, while finding ways to put idiosyncratic spins on individual moments. Somebody else might have made Dracula outright scarier. Cage manages to be profoundly disquieting while still wholly fitting in with RENFIELD’s overall whimsical tone.

RENFIELD is here for those who like laughs accompanied by red geysers, expansive monsters, and protagonists who are up to defying expectations. It’s mostly a blast.

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