Renfield Review

There have been many featuring the Prince of Darkness himself, Dracula. Renfield is the latest film to feature the famous vampire.

Robert Montague Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) is Dracula’s familiar. He must do the usual things for his master: find accommodation, get victims, and protect the Count from the forces of good.  When Renfield finds himself in New Orleans he joins a support group for people trapped in co-dependent relationships and tries to rid the world of evil people by giving them to Dracula (Nicolas Cage) as blood sources. However, Renfield’s action makes him upset his master and the New Orleans criminal underworld.

Renfield was a film that had a B-Movie quality to it. It was unashamedly bloody and violent, and I was grinning like an idiot when Renfield unleashed his powers. This was a film where limbs were getting ripped off and throats get slashed. It was wonderfully over-the-top. The CGI and some make-up effects were a bit iffy but added to the B-Movie charm.

The mix of horror, comedy, and gangster story made Renfield a bit like a Robert Rodriguez film. He mixed genres with his B-Movie homages, like From Dusk Till Dawn, Planet Terror, and Machete. They were fun mashups, and Renfield stood out in the current cinematic.

Renfield was a film that was proudly cheesy. An early flashback was filmed like a monster movie from the 1930s and Dracula was dressed like the Bela Lugosi version of the character. Cage knew the type of film, he was having a blast hamming it up as Renfield’s abusive boss. Hoult was also entertaining as the prissy Englishman who has been under the thumb of Dracula too long and was too meek, but an utter badass when he was allowed to use his superpowers.

Hoult as the title character did aim to give the film some heart. He was trying to do good despite working for an evil master. Renfield wanted to make amends and try to help his new friends at the support group, even if his methods were questionable. It was easy to empathise with Renfield because of the abuse he suffered, trapped in an eternal cycle of Dracula making promises to Renfield, Dracula takes advantage and when the vampire gets defeated, Renfield rehabilitates his boss. A pointed scene was when Dracula picked at Renfield’s insecurities and say Renfield needed Dracula. Dracula was an abusive partner.

As a comedy, Renfield was a delight. There were plenty of moments I laughed at. This was a film where characters debated on whether an assassin calling themselves ‘The Apache’ was racist and a character throwing bricks of cocaine at the police to avoid arrest. When Renfield was allowed to go free and modernise his lifestyle it was funny and there was great comedic timing when Dracula confronted Renfield. However, some of the humour was too reliant on Awkwafina to adlib jokes.

Renfield was more focused on the action and comedy, there was a potentially effective horror during the middle of the film as Dracula’s power unleashed his full fury. However, this moment was undercut by the reveal at the end of the film.

Renfield did try to cover a lot in its 90-minute runtime and not all of this succeeded. But it was a bloody delight when it unleased its violent rage and there was enough heart to make audiences care for the characters.