Renfield Movie Review

Somewhere inside Renfield there’s a great short film. As a feature-length, it’s one that quickly starts to feel long in the fangs.

Despite the inspired casting of Nic Cage as Count Dracula, who literally and figuratively vamps it up, and Nicholas Hoult as his faithful but traumatized Familiar, Renfield takes a great concept and bites in all the wrong places.

What could have been a highly entertaining horror-comedy soon devolves into a weird action-comedy of sorts, with director Chris McKay opting for his title character to use his “special powers” to punch, stab, and impale countless baddies in the name of good. In addition to Dracula, there is also a heartless gangster family for some reason.

Renfield is not without its positives: it is gory and relishes in the unique ways people are dispensed with. A hotel action scene is a hoot. Cage is fun as Dracula. Some of the early group therapy scenes are amusing.

But Renfield simply goes in the wrong direction and doesn’t have the material to sustain a feature-length movie. What’s funny is that the marketing team—who made the trailer—seemed to understand the concept better than the filmmakers. A horror-comedy about a Familiar who goes to therapy to deal with his co-dependency with Dracula? That’s fun. An action-comedy involving vampire super powers? Much less so.

Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.