By David Dent
The jumping off point for Chris McKay’s exuberant, stylish, amusing – and occasionally very funny -horror comedy is that Renfield and Dracula (never referred to as ‘The Count’ here, Sesame Street fans), have soldiered on through the years, with the former constantly prising the latter from near death scrapes and procuring victims (enabling Dracula to re-assemble himself and begin the whole mess over again), and the latter gaining superhuman powers from the chugging of – you guessed it – insects.
But then Renfield has a penny-drop moment, courtesy of a self-help group which he’s started attending; why, he’s in a manipulative, coercive relationship, one from which he needs to extract himself. But of course things are never that straightforward, and as the Prince of Darkness – recovering from his last ill-fated reign of terror – regains his strength, he tracks down Renfield to have a chat about loyalty.
For some directors this would be story enough, but McKay busies it up with a drug lord seeking revenge for the ‘accidental’ death of one of his own and a disaffected policewoman, Rebecca (Awkwafina, Crazy Rich Asians) who seems to be the only non-crooked cop on the precinct, and whose confidence recovery story is intertwined with said drug baron.
Casting wise, as Renfield Nicholas Hoult is appealing but feels just a little too sotto voce for the role; Hoult does comedy well, but his performance here seems a tad ‘small screen’ for this frenetic outing. Awkwafina is fine as the cop seeking revenge while remaining on the right side of the law; but it’s Cage’s film. As Dracula, the actor has finally found a role that happily accommodates his idiosyncrasies, playing fast and loose with any common perceptions of the character; as well as getting the best scenes, Cage’s vampire is mean, peevish and, well, controlling.
The self-help narrative framing gives the film a definite What We Do in the Shadows drollness, which sometimes sits a little uneasily with the big set pieces. There’s some lovely stuff at the beginning with old Universal movies footage – into which Cage and Hoult’s faces are inserted – used to bring the audience up to speed with the pair’s backstory. Ultimately this may feel like a Renfield ‘origin’ movie (I sense at least one sequel) but it’s a hugely entertaining romp and there’s enough nods to the source characters and vampire mythology to stop it feeling like just another superhero film.
Renfield is released in UK cinemas on 14 April 2023.
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