3 ½ stars
Nicolas Cage has acted in more than 100 films, and it’s a sure bet that you could watch any one of them and pick out a “Cage” moment, a scene where the actor does something unique, something no other actor would think of let alone do in front of the camera.
Some of these moments have been part of fantastic films, like when Cage shops in the liquor store in Leaving Las Vegas. Others have been the best part of some awful films, such as the scene where his character gets one of his balls blown – literally – off in Prisoners of Ghostland. None of them are so incredibly “Nic Cage” as the scene in Renfield where Cage, playing the part of Dracula, introduces himself to the self-help group his servant attends to help him escape his abusive relationship with the Prince of Darkness. The scene is classic Cage, especially how he combines seduction and show business to make his entrance. But there is a closeup where Cage signals Renfield with a tip of his hat that goes in the books as one of his best “Cage-isms” ever.
And it’s the icing on top of one of his most entertaining movies in a long time.
Directed by Chris Mckay (The Tomorrow War), Renfield tells the familiar Dracula legend from the POV of the vampire’s long-suffering servant, Renfield, played by Nicholas Hoult (The Menu). They’ve shared the same relationship for centuries. Renfield keeps his master safe during the day and brings him bodies to feed upon at night. In exchange, Renfield is granted eternal life and superhuman physical powers. He’s actually given the ability to take the life force from the insects he eats and convert it, but the result is the same. During a battle with a vampire hunter, Dracula is severely injured from exposure to the sun’s rays and is forced to go into hiding while Renfield brings him back bodies to nurse the vampire back to health. It’s while his master is at his lowest that Renfield, with the aid of his support group, makes the bold decision to leave Dracula and set out on a life of his own.
It doesn’t go over well at all.
The plot for Renfield is a fun twist on the lore of Dracula that has been reused and reworked since Max Schrek first put on fangs in 1922 in Nosferatu. It hits all the marks audiences have come to expect from their celluloid vampires, with just enough updating to make it believable in 2023. Sure, this Dracula wears a cape and a top hat, but the film is set in New Orleans, where such an outfit would hardly be noticed. McKay adds to the legend an enormous sense of fun, an undead joie de vivre, that he shares with the audience. Other vampire films show a good amount of blood, for example, but few wallow in it as gleefully as McKay, who seems to have spent a good chunk of the film’s budget on gallons and gallons and gallons of stage blood. And it isn’t just shown dripping down a victim’s neck; McKay lets it geyser out of bodies and across the screen. Those with weak constitutions may want to look away; the rest will laugh with the director.
Renfield is such a rollicking good time that it’s impossible not to feel deflated when it finally ends, even though it has a fantastic ending. Luckily, one of the traditions of Dracula movies is that no matter how gruesomely the vampire dies – and it is hilariously gruesome in Renfield – he will rise from the dead to exact his revenge in a sequel. Here’s hoping McKay, Hoult, and Cage keep that tradition alive, too.
