Renfield
Nicolas Cage in “Renfield” as Dracula is just as delightfully, deliciously over the top as you would want him to be.
Cage, after years of figuratively chewing the scenery, gets to do it literally as the preening Prince of Darkness. His wild eyed delivery is filled with sudden bursts and odd inflections, along with some bits of charm to keep us off guard. It seems a natural progression 35 years after “Vampire’s Kiss,” where he was not exactly nibbling the neck so much as gnawing an artery and now he’s just fully basking in this mythic monster’s insatiable thirst.
The performance which is supporting since this movie really is about Dracula’s titular underling remains consistently entertaining even when the film around it wavers. As Renfield, Nicholas Hoult plays an endearingly flustered straight man, like a vintage Hugh Grant character but with flickers of assertiveness whenever his character needs to kick ass. And that happens a lot: “Renfield” blends deadpan comedy with insanely graphic violence in a way that’s too cartoonish to be shocking or scary anymore, we’re talking severed limbs and exploding heads and gushing torrents of blood here. For the most part, this combination works and elicits laughs and gasps in equal measure.
But Chris McKay’s film from a script by Ryan Ridley and Robert Kirkman (“The Walking Dead”) undoes all that fun with supporting players and subplots that are nowhere near as interesting. The central conceit of this contemporary reimagining of a familiar tale is that Renfield is tired of being stuck in a toxic, codependent relationship with his narcissistic boss. That’s a funny idea right from the opening shot a close-up on a name tag that says “Hello My Name Is Renfield” while he sits in a circle at what appears to be a self help meeting and the mundane humanization of these otherworldly creatures may call to mind the deadpan humor of “What We Do in the Shadows.” But the material meant to flesh out this story is so bland and underdeveloped that it makes “Renfield” feel like a sketch concept stretched thin to feature length.
It has potential, though. McKay amusingly drops Cage and Hoult’s characters into classic genre settings before situating them as they are now: living in New Orleans, looking for victims. They’ve set up shop in an abandoned hospital where Renfield is searching for fresh bodies to feed his master while Dracula struggles to regain his full strength; the makeup and visual effects are impressive throughout as he withers in various states of gooey grotesquerie before returning to his full flamboyant glory.
Along the way, with encouragement from his support group (led by an appealing Brandon Scott Jones, who’s got great timing), Renfield comes to realize that there could be a different life for him a happy one of his own. There are many funny details in production and costume design as Renfield seeks a brighter, more colorful persona far removed from the Gothic look that has defined him for the past century or so.
However, then he gets pulled into a uninteresting subplot including Awkwafina as the one law enforcement officer in New Orleans who isn’t corrupt. Her character, Rebecca, wants to know and avenge her father’s death he was a legendary cop. That’s about all there is to her, Camille Chen plays her FBI agent sister, who has even less to do. Awkwafina has a funny exasperated deadpan thing going on, and she and Hoult have a nice prickly chemistry together so much so that you wish she had more to do. Ben Schwartz also gets to be obnoxious as the striving drug-dealing son of a cartel boss (played by Shohreh Aghdashloo, in one of those paper thin roles that comes with an array of fabulous power suits).
With this cast and this concept, there is so much potential here! The meta Dracula stuff is often very clever. And “Renfield” can be really fun in fits and starts. But expose it to the harsh light of day and it withers away.
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