His name is Robert Montague Renfield. You probably know him only by his last name and occupation. He's the bug-eating assistant to the infamous Count Dracula, vampire of all vampires.
In a world of spinoff and rehash, we shouldn't be surprised that Renfield has ascended to the role of title character.
But for me and possibly for others, the main reason to see Renfield has less to do with a hapless assistant, played by Nicholas Hoult, than with the blood-sucking count, rendered in this helping by Nicolas Cage, the master of unhinged theatricality.
It's, therefore, instantly dispiriting that the movie -- true to tis title -- mostly centers on Renfield, transporting him to present-day New Orleans where he meets a corruption-fighting police officer (Awkwafina) and labors to escape Dracula’s grasp.
A ridiculously strained development follows. Renfield is drawn into a conflict with a drug-dealing gang called the Lobos, hoodlums led by Bellafrancesca Lobo (Sohreh Aghdashloo) and her gleefully sadistic son Edward (Ben Schwartz).
Forget haunted castles and fog-shrouded landscapes. Forget seductive wooing of victims who fall under Dracula’s sway. Writers Ryan Ridley and Robert Kirkman, the latter of Walking Dead fame, and director Chris McKay work to subvert genre cliches but find few adequate replacements.
If Renfield aims to be a comic/horror mashup it misses badly on the latter and hits only intermittently on the former -- not to mention its flood of hyper-active gore splashing.
The premise has promise. Imagine a Renfield who's sick of being Dracula's flunky. To further complicate matters, the miserable creature hasn't entirely squelched his desire to do good.
Dracula, on the other hand, seems immune to any sort of identity crisis. He unashamedly embraces his evil nature, appearing first as an undernourished vampire whose head looks like it has been sculpted from rotting cheese.
Working with heavy make-up and a set of pointy choppers, Cage fully vents the fabled character, indulging his taste for flamboyance, sarcasm, and grandiosity.
Still, I wouldn't class this outing as one of Cage's great displays. He does what he can with a classic character, but the screenplay gives him nowhere to go.
Hoult's performance takes shape as the movie progresses. Renfield has been granted super-human strength by Dracula. Fueling his powers by consuming insects, Renfield’s miserable existence unfolds in the shadow of a narcissistic boss.
The movie's best gag involves a sweater. After Renfield helps rescue a group of innocents at a bar, Awkwafina's Rebecca encourages him to see himself as a hero. Renfield begins to seek independence, renting an apartment, donning sweaters that would be at home in an Archie comic book, and joining a self-help group that tries to teach him how to shed his co-dependency.
In all, Renfield has the feel of an explosion that spews its shards into a whirl of gross-outs, jokes, frenzied action, toothless social commentary, and more.
Sadly, none of these fragments cohere into the bloody rewarding romp that may have been intended. Oh well, it’s possible to enjoy Renfield in small bites, but Bela Lugosi can rest easy.
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