★★★☆☆
Nicolas Cage playing Dracula on the big screen has been coming for a long time. The actor’s desire to portray the Prince of Darkness has been well documented, but it’s only now that it has actually materialised. Cage reportedly shaved his teeth to make room for the fangs he sported for the role. And even then, the film isn’t even really about Dracula.
This is the story of Robert Montague Renfield (played with wonderful awkwardness by Nicholas Hoult). He is Dracula’s familiar or his carer. Renfield feeds and tends to all of his master’s needs, but neglects to take care of himself in the process.
Renfield begins attending a support group for codependent people as the pair relocate to New Orleans for Dracula to rest and regenerate. At first, it’s to find new victims; Renfield goes after the bad boyfriends and feeds them to Dracula, but it all goes a bit tits up when Renfield accidentally targets the wrong people, the infamous Lobo crime family.
Credit: Universal Pictures
Renfield is still looking for a way out from his current employment when he meets Rebecca (Awkwafina), a plucky cop who is on a quest to avenge the death of his father at the hands of the Lobos. Renfield is immediately smitten, but Dracula is getting more and more powerful each day, threatening to nip this romance right in the bud.
From the trailers, Renfield looked like it was going to be a fun, if a little forgettable, comedy adventure and for the most part, it is. What the trailers didn’t show, though, is just how gleefully gory Chris McKay’s film is. Arms, legs and heads are routinely chopped off and thrown around. Even at its sillier moments, Renfield is wildly entertaining. Sure, it’s probably not actually possible to pin someone to the wall with a severed arm, but it’s fun to watch!
As expected, Nicolas Cage is the true highlight of the film. His performance is all about excess; whether it’s his accent, physicality or eyebrows, Cage turns it all the way up to eleven in Renfield. Then again, the entire film is designed to be as over-the-top and excessive as humanly possible.
Nicholas Hoult, so funny and compelling in 2022’s The Menu, shines here too. As he’s proven over the years since his departure from Skins, he is a wonderfully intuitive comedic actor with a particular skill of timing. Here, he’s allowed to balance his awkward humour with kick-ass fight choreography. Although most of the fight scenes are cleverly edited to hide the fact that Hoult isn’t performing the stunts himself, it at least gives him a little bit more to do than to solely rely on his comedic chops.
Credit: Universal Pictures
It’s a shame McKay doesn’t give Hoult and Cage more room to play. Their screen time together feels oddly limited; there’s charisma and signs of a fascinating dynamic here, but it’s never allowed to blossom or organically develop as Renfield and Dracula are separated for most of the film’s runtime. Somehow, Ben Schwartz as the clownish Teddy Lobo becomes the film’s underrated MVP with his pitch-perfect performance that’s deliciously stupid but never too over the top.
Although Renfield nails its pacing – at 90 minutes, it’s the perfect length – but its narrative is far too cluttered. A subplot with Rebecca’s sister adds very little and only works to lessen the time we get to spend with Dracula himself. Shohreh Aghdashloo is also criminally underused as the matriarch of the Lobo family.
Renfield is enjoyable but ultimately a little forgettable. While most of the jokes land, some of them feel recycled, and they lack wit. McKay mistakes using slow-mo as having style in your film but does an excellent job at making you overlook the flaws in favour of a simple, easy laugh.
Renfield is in cinemas on 14 April.
