The horror comedy RENFIELD gives the Dracula story gets a modern twist by re-imagining the vampire’s servant Renfield, played by Nicholas Hoult, as in a co-dependent relationship with his demanding boss/ master Dracula, played with scenery-chewing glee and comic menace by Nicolas Cage. A big part of the real fun of this very bloody horror comedy is in it fabulous recreations of Tod Browning’s classic 1931 DRACULA with Bela Lugosi. Hoult does an impressive Dwight Frye as Renfield impression, including that crazy laugh, in these sequences (and occasionally throughout the movie). Nicolas Cage mimics the elegant Bela Lugosi in the recreations of Tod Browning’s classic but otherwise Cage’s Dracula is his own mix of monsters, drawing on more on Christopher Lee and others than Lugosi.
Actually, a lot of the fun for classic movie fans in director Chris McKay’s bloody vampire comedy are the beautifully-executed recreations of that classic monster movie. McKay also alludes to various other Dracula movie incarnations, and references how the monsters in monster movies tend to get bigger and more powerful in sequels while still having the same kind of showdowns with the forces for good battling them. The film alternates between comedy and bloody cartoon violence action scenes, while Renfield grapples with his toxic relationship with Dracula, and his longing for a normal “life” (even though he is also undead).
The film opens with Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) at a self-help group for people with co-dependency issues. He isn’t there to talk about his relationship with his controlling boss, the Prince of Darkness, Dracula (Nicolas Cage) but to hunt for victims for his master. But Renfield tries to play nice guy by not targeting the people at the session, but their tormentors, along with whatever criminals he comes across.
Dispatching one of these tormentors brings Renfield in contact with a drug-dealing crime ring, and the drug lord Teddy Hobo (Ben Schwartz), who runs that part of the Lobo crime family business for his powerful crime boss mom, Ella (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and then in contact with straight-arrow cop Rebecca Quincy (Awkwafina), rebelling against corruption in the force, and her partner (Adrian Martinez), who is less committed to that fight.
The story is set in New Orleans, a perfect spot for this tale, where Dracula is in hiding as he recovers from a very nasty encounter with a van Helsing-type and a priest, which leaves Renfield to do the hunting (or should that be shopping?) for him. Before the tale really gets underway, narrator Renfield gives us a quick recap of that and how he and his boss Dracula met.
This launches us into that wonderful flashback with a marvelous recreation of early scenes Tod Browning’s 1931 black and white DRACULA, either sampling the Universal monster classic (and not that this film is the same studio as distributor) and inserting Nick Cage and Nick Hoult in to the Dracula and Renfield roles. These bits of homage to the original sound film are worth the ticket price alone and there are more snippets later. The classic movie recreations are followed by a quick summary of how Renfield and Dracula ended up in New Orleans, where the story takes place and where Dracula is in hiding as he recovers from a nasty encounter with a van Helsing-type and a priest, which leaves Renfield to do the hunting (or should that be shopping?) for him.
However, Renfield is growing tired of his long life of servitude – and his temperamental and demanding master, and longs for something like a more normal life. When Dracula complains about the quality of the victims, all baddies, that Renfield is bringing him, and demands a better quality of blood – like from nuns and cheerleaders – Renfield reaches a new low. Maybe it is time to admit he is co-dependent.
You can see the comic potential in that, and the script dives right in. In between the drama between Renfield and his toxic boss, we get plenty of action sequences, of the cartoon violence variety, and in the horror movie “buckets-o-blood” vein (ahem). This is over-the-top stuff, with spurting red stuff and limbs severed and heads popped off, but those sensitive to blood and guts should take note.
The film has some great comic moments but overall it suffers from too-slow pacing and a tendency to repeat or draw out some scenes, as if wanting to extend the running time. Generally the comic and relationship scenes work better than the action ones, where the slow pacing and a lack of inventiveness does not work well with a blood-and-gore horror, where speed is needed. While there are some delightful moments between the two Nicks, and an especially funny and spot-on for relationship humor where Cage questions Hoult when Renfield is trying to conceal information from the Prince of Darkness, but the best parts of the film are by far the classic movie recreation scenes, where both Cage and Hoult reveling in the parts with winking humor.
Both Nicks are excellent in this, milking their scenes together for comedy, as Nick Cage’s Dracula plays the worst boss ever with hints to everyone kind of toxic relationship. Where the film falls short is in the action sequences. RENFIELD subscribes to the Buckets-O-Blood school of horror, with cartoon violence that involves spurting founds of red and limbs torn off and heads popped off in the most exaggerated manner. The problem is that the action is a bit slow and repetitive, not nearly fast enough to make it work, and has lackluster, almost generic music under it, which doesn’t help. Oddly, the sound track to the more comic relationship parts is excellent.
Renfield is taken with officer Quincy’s unshakable ethical standards but the scenes between Hoult and Awkwafina don’t always completely work. Hoult plays the smitten Renfield well, with a sweetness and innocence, but Awkwafina seems less comfortable in her narrowly defined role which does not give her enough room to shine. The casting seemed a good idea but as the part as written is too confining, although Awkwafina does get some drama mileage out of it, regarding avenging her father and protecting her sister. Among the supporting characters, Iranian American actor Shohreh Aghdashloo is the elegant and coolly-powerful stand-out in her few scenes. As her son, Ben Schwartz is more noisy and blustering than scary, like an overgrown teenager determined to show how bad he is, while still trying to impress his mom.
RENFIELD serves up gory horror comedy fun, very much on the bloody side. Although some scenes seem to repeat points already made and the action scenes could be energetic, the impressive classic film sequences more than make up for any flaws.
RENFIELD opens Friday, April 14, in theaters.
RATING: 3 out of 4 stars
