Written by Cameron Geiser

All hail the ninety-minute movie! A shorter runtime can mend some serious misgivings, but luckily for us Renfield is just jaunty and loose enough with its stakes that this Vampire action-comedy makes for a decent enough time at the movies. Nicholas Hoult stars as Renfield, the long suffering servant of the Dark Lord Dracula, played with an air of royalty and menace by none other than Nicolas Cage himself. This version of the characters from Bram Stoker’s infamous novel skip forward in time about ninety years (roughly speaking) after giving a quick introduction to the crucial elements of their backstory. For the uninitiated, around the turn of the twentieth century Renfield traveled to Dracula’s Castle as a lawyer hoping to score a real estate deal with the wealthy count of Transylvania. As you can imagine, things didn’t go quite as Renfield had hoped for.

Sealing a deal with Dracula to become his “familiar”, a vassal for the Dark Lord who is imbued with a fraction of his power, Renfield is often tasked with finding bodies for his boss to drain. After a particularly violent clash with the last of the vampire hunters Renfield must once again clean up the mess, find a new home to plunder innocent souls from, and tend to his master’s needs. This brings Renfield and Dracula to an abandoned Hospital near New Orleans where they settle into their groove.

In this modern day setting, poor old Renfield copes with his overbearing boss by going to a support group for people in abusive co-dependent relationships. He uses the group twofold, in one way by tracking down the monsters that abuse his fellow group members and feeding said monsters to *his monster*, but also by reconnecting with his sense of humanity through listening to these people’s weekly demons. The support group sessions provide a few chuckles here and there, his fellow commiserators even convince battered ole Renfield to stand up for himself after a while. He changes his color palette, gets a haircut, and even moves into a pastel colored apartment before realizing that he’ll never be free of Dracula until he’s confronted.

Renfield has a scattershot plot that’s more interested in moment to moment fun than it is with consistency or depth, but that’s okay given the context. As a comparison, while I myself do enjoy most of the offerings from the Marvel Comics movie machine that is currently devouring Hollywood, those films can occasionally get a bit laborious with keeping track of everything that’s ongoing. Mercifully, this film felt refreshing and relieving knowing that there are no sequels, or prequels, to have to remember or plotlines to recall. That weight off my shoulders is directly proportional to how the film carries itself in relation to genre sentiments and excessively outlandish gore. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and you shouldn’t either when Renfield punches a bad guy’s head literally off his shoulders.

The story doesn’t blend its two genres quite as well as it would like to, instead using familiar old tropes to fill in the gaps among the other absurdities of Renfield. I haven’t even mentioned the mobster B-plot that has cartoonishly evil villains in the form of The Lobos, the gang working with the police department to crush the few good people left out there. Like Awkwafina’s sassy cop Rebecca Quincy. She’s just trying to live up to her Dad’s image, a highly respected police officer that was killed by The Lobos. Is it a bit predictable and so-so? Yeah, but let’s be honest with ourselves, we came to see Nicolas Cage as Dracula and he delivers on that promise. The over the top violence is a fine frosting to this genre cake. Although good lord, maybe turn down the CGI blood effects just a bit? I don’t mind an abundance of blood on screen, but practical effects are always better in this regard.

Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.