What do you get when you cross an actor renowned for stagy performances and a classic movie monster typically portrayed with restrained elegance and economy of movement? In the case of Renfield, you get a character who commands your attention. Nicholas Cage’s trademark theatricality spawns a Count Dracula who delights in displaying not just incisors but a mouth full of sharp choppers. He exaggerates his facial expressions, body movements, and vocal style to trounce on our conception of the Dark One. It’s all over the top, and it’s all great.
For nearly a century, the unageing titular character (Nicholas Hoult), inspired by a character of the same name in Bram Stocker’s novel Dracula, has been the count’s “familiar” (aka slave) responsible for corralling victims for the blood-drinking fiend. Now Renfield is attending a therapy group whose members are victims of toxic relationships so he can bring his convalescing boss the bad people he learns about. Alas, what Dracula craves is morally upstanding innocents.
Initially, Renfield appears as a brooding, Tim Burtonesque character. The viewer soon learns, however, that Renfield’s master has endowed him with superhuman strength and reflexes… provided that he eats bugs. This brings us to the film’s second big draw (beyond Cage’s performance): the ultraviolent fight scenes. Renfield doesn’t just throw punches – he tears off arms, cuts people in half, stomps on heads, and uses limbs as weapons. If Renfield does throw a punch, his target’s head explodes. And with all of this comes a torrent of blood.
By the film’s end, all the kicking, jumping, and throwing starts to grow a bit tedious. Each fight, however, highlights at least one ridiculously violent fatality. In one gloriously unnecessary scene, the screen shifts to an x-ray view to show how Renfield’s attack impacts his target’s organs and bones.
Another interesting facet of the film is the relationship that the protagonist develops with straightlaced cop Rebecca (Awkwafina). Renfield admires her because she isn’t afraid to die (like he is) and she refuses to let the powers that be corrupt her mission to avenge her father’s death by bringing down the Lobos gang responsible for his death.
Awkwafina commendably avoids the hackneyed female cop, often portrayed as either a know-it-all trying to be cool or a pottymouthed loose cannon trying too hard to be funny. There is no pretension with Rebecca — she tells it how it is while showcasing Awkwafina’s patented dry sense of humour.
The trailer for Renfield slowly builds up to introducing Cage as the infamous count. Conversely, within the first couple of minutes of the actual film, his whole face, replete with toothy grin, dominates the screen. The contrast pierces the jugular – Nicholas Cage has injected some life into the undead and pulled Count Dracula from the shadows. Douglas J. Ogurek ****
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