160) NEW HORROR RELEASES - Renfield (2023)

"I don't ask for much, Renfield. Just the blood of a few dozen innocent people." 

Director

Chris McKay

Cast

Nicholas Hoult - R.M. Renfield

Nicholas Cage - Count Dracula

Awkwafina - Rebecca

Ben Schwartz - Ted Lobo
Shohreh Aghdashloo - Bellafrancesca Lobo
Brandon Scott Jones - Mark, the support group leader

I can't recall any other year in which new horror movie releases have piqued my interest more. A large number of horror flicks have come out this year that I'd like to see, including "Renfield" starring America's favorite lunatic actor, Nicholas Cage, as Dracula. Normally, it takes a lot for a new horror flick to grab my interest. Too many of them end up as big let downs. 

My love for the Universal Monster movies is what drew me to "Renfield." I was sold on the idea of a vampire movie centering on Count Dracula's fanatically loyal servant R.M. Renfield. That's just how he's portrayed in Tod Browning's 1931 horror classic "Dracula" with Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula and Dwight Frye as Renfield. So, that's what I was expecting here. But "Renfield" didn't really go in the direction I expected.

I started to find myself entertained by Cage beginning with the 2022 movie "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent." Before, I never took any liking to him. Now, I admit he's grown on me. But I can't get myself to say I'm a Nicholas Cage fan. I just can't. Not yet anyways. Maybe I'll just say I don't dislike him as much as I used to and leave it with that.

"Renfield" starts with some backstory beginning with the titular character (Nicholas Hoult) and Dracula first meeting. It's a full-on nod to their introduction as seen in Browning's classic. It's the same black and white scene, but with Cage and Hoult in the roles of Lugosi and Frye. 

After ninety years, Renfield still serves as Dracula's slave, or familiar, as he brings him fresh victims to feast on. In return, Dracula gives Renfield immortality and the ability to gain superhuman strength by snacking on live insects. 

After all this time, Renfield is tired of doing Dracula's bidding all while taking verbal abuse from the prince of darkness.

He and Dracula nearly escape a close call by some vampire hunters who attempt to kill Dracula. So, the two decide to move from Transylvania to New Orleans to escape any more vampire hunters. They take up residency in the abandoned and dilapidated Charity Hospital.

Meanwhile, a traffic cop named Rebecca (Awkwafina), who's a second-generation police officer, has a run-in with Tedward Lobo (Ben Schwartz), the son of crime boss Bellafrancesca Lobo (Shohreh Aghdashloo)- head of the Lobo crime family- during a police sobriety checkpoint. 

She arrests Ted after he plows through her check point and throws bricks of cocaine at her. 

Nicholas Cage and Nicholas Hoult in "Renfield."

However, he's released almost immediately which makes the corruption within her department completely obvious. So, she goes to her sister Kate (Camille Chen), who's an FBI agent, for help and support. 

Renfield, meanwhile, decides to enter a support group for people wanting to leave abusive relationships so he can be independent from the shadow of Dracula's domination. Of course, he keeps the gory details behind this relationship to himself.

He later befriends Rebecca after saving her life from an attack at a restaurant led by Ted, who is pressured by his mother to do whatever it takes to make the Lobo family number one in the city.

After Renfield kills several of the Lobos family henchmen during the attack, the Lobo matriarch puts a price on his head. 

Renfield also takes the advice of the support group leader, Mark (Brandon Scott Jones), and begins to live his own life away from Dracula. He gets his own apartment and turns over a new leaf that doesn't involve dragging innocent people to his old "master." 

In attempting to find and kill Renfield, Ted discovers Dracula in the abandoned hospital. Instead of killing Ted, Dracula makes an agreement with him, and then pays Renfield a visit at his new apartment. 

He decides to make Renfield's life a hell and attacks the self-help group while Renfield is helpless to intervene. 

The Lobos family, along with the army of corrupt officers they've paid off, attack Renfield and Rebecca again at his apartment.

As the attack ends with the death of practically all the henchmen and rotten cops, Ted, Bellafrancesca and Dracula kidnapped Rebecca's sister in an attempt to lure in Renfield and Rebecca. 

Both sides square off in a final standoff of good versus evil. 

While I appreciate the comedic premise of Renfield wanting to be his own individual person, the movie is frustrating. 

It's perfectly well known that among the standard Dracula tropes, he cowers at the sight of crucifixes and other holy or blessed objects.

But the movie takes a conceited and misguided turn against religion (Catholicism specifically) - the very entity that brings Dracula to his knees- and replaces it with an empty platitude of inner-strength and power, blah blah blah, as a means to take down the prince of darkness. It's a plot point that comes across as arrogant and stupid. 

This puts goodness as the evil, and the evil as good. One of the vampire hunters in the beginning of the film is a Catholic bishop. He's portrayed as weak and uncertain. Dracula takes him down by literally blowing him up. In a deleted scene, this bishop attempts And that the real goodness comes from our own inner-strength, or some such empty nonsense. 

But all the other typical vampire tropes are there. So, which is it? 

Vampires cannot enter someone's domain unless they're invited in. One joke that had me laughing sees Dracula walk on in to Renfield's apartment. It takes Renfield a moment to wonder how Dracula was able to enter his pad without his verbal invitation, and then sees his welcome mat on the front step that says "Come on in." 

Awkwafina's performance is like that of a freshman who just joined their high school drama club. It's rigid and bland. And she delivers her dialogue like she's trying her hardest to remember her script. 

I was bit smitten a bit at the opening use of Browning's 1931 film at the beginning.

Cage's performance is quite the opposite, and the best thing the movie has going for it. His eccentric personality and style is perfect for such an eccentric character. At times, I didn't see Cage at all. I saw conniving and twisted Count Dracula.

Also, William Ragsdale, who plays vampire hunter Charley Brewster in the classic vampire movie "Fright Night" makes a cameo in "Renfield." Nice!

This is director Chris McKay's third movie following a meager handful of films he also directed which have garnered a lot of attention - namely "The Lego Batman Movie," and "The Tomorrow War." He's also a story writer for the 2023 movie "Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves."

Unfortunately, "Renfield" is a bloody mess of CGI gore, empty ideas, over the top nonsense that fails to wow the audience, and a disdain for what puts evil in its place. It's too tainted with a tiresome politically correct message, wafting throughout like stinky gas which spoils the overall horror story. It makes enough to make one repel in disgust like Dracula in the presence of garlic or wolfsbane. 

I will say that if a biopic depicting Lugosi's role in the original Dracula is ever produced, Cage would be an ideal actor to play that part.

I'm including horror movie trivia into my posts now! That's fun, right? Either way, there it is. The answer will be in my next post...

Horror writer Stephen King's son, Joseph King, is also a horror writer. What is his pen name?

*Answer to the question from my last post, "The Attic" = Lankester.