Renfield
Director: Chris McKay
Writer: Ryan Ridley, Robert Kirkman, Ava Tramer
Based on/continued from: Bram Stoker‘s novel Dracula
Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz, Shohreh Aghdashloo
Seen on: 31.5.2023

Plot:
Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) has been Dracula’s (Nicolas Cage) assistant, daylight traveler and servant for very many years now, and he didn’t think things could ever change. But after having accidentally wandered into a self-help group for people in abusive/co-dependent relationships, he starts to dream of a different life. Meanwhile he still has to feed Dracula, though, he is recuperating after a serious injury. Since Renfield tries to bring him bad guys (and not the desired innocents), this lets him cross paths with idealistic police officer Rebecca (Awkwafina). The two connect over their desire to do right. But Dracula will not just let them live their lives.

With cheesy performances and ridiculous ideas, Renfield is a really funny, surprisingly gory horror comedy that will make you laugh for sure.

I didn’t expect much from Renfield apart from it being fun, and that is certainly what I got. Sometimes it actually has fresh ideas, sometimes it falls back on staler material, but it’s such a nice mix that rushes by at a fast pace that you barely notice when the script is a bit thin or all over the place. And just in case you might notice, everything gets covered in a whole lot of blood and viscera.

Much attention will go to Cage and his scenery-chewing. He gets to live his claim to fame to the fullest here which will make fans very happy. I am not that much of a fan of his, I have to say, but his hamminess is definitely amusing here. Personally, I enjoyed Hoult’s bumbling performance more. It works surprisingly well with Awkwafina’s usual shtick, which is also suprising because Rebecca’s entire plot seems to come in from a completely different film.

But even though I can fault the film structurally and for wasting Aghdashloo, I don’t really want to. Because I went in the film, had a blast for 90 minutes and left the cinema still giggling. So, the film absolutely gave me what I hoped for – and it even manages to impart some knowledge about toxic relationships and what they can look like. What more could I ask for from it?

Summarizing: made me happy.