Rating: R | Runtime: 93 minutes
Release Date: April 14th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director(s): Chris McKay
Writer(s): Ryan Ridley / Robert Kirkman (story)

Okay, obviously we dealing with a little bit more than narcissism here.

Robert Montague Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) has been under Dracula’s (Nicolas Cage) thumb for so long that he’s truly forgotten how he got there. Was it hypnosis? Was it greed? How about a toxic case of codependency? Ask the leader (Brandon Scott Jones’ Mark) of the “Assholes Anonymous” group he frequents to target victims for his master and the answer would easily be the latter, but Renfield isn’t yet ready to share his fear or helplessness.

In his mind he’s still doing his best and assuaging his guilt by sacrificing the criminals and bullies who haunt his AA companions to Dracula despite him demanding innocent blood instead. It might have been enough to keep the cycle (unchecked hedonism leading to vampire hunters leading to an inevitably long period of recovery) going too if Renfield hadn’t also accidentally stumbled into the crosshairs of New Orleans’ infamous Lobo clan (Shohreh Aghdashloo’s Bellafrancesca and Ben Schwartz as her son Tedward) along the way.

Born from a treatment by Robert Kirkman and scripted by Ryan Ridley, director Chris McKay’s Renfield serves as a comically warped sequel to Tod Browning’s Dracula complete with Cage and Hoult mimicking the roles performed by Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye in order to be superimposed atop them. These reworked scenes serve as prologue to the present with a burnt and powerless Dracula locked inside an abandoned hospital in The Big Easy while Renfield trolls for “food.”

They show us the gradual sense of defeat that has taken hold of the “familiar,” his lost gaze a mix of disenfranchisement and ambivalence. It’s only when he witnesses a beat cop (Awkwafina’s Rebecca Quincy) standing up to Teddy Lobo with a gun against her head that he remembers what it is to feel empowered. She may call him a hero for what he does as a result, but Renfield has a long way to go before shaking his own self-loathing to even pretend to agree.

Don’t feel too bad for him, though. While Renfield is built upon the scaffolding of self-help affirmations, the true weight of what they instill and the growth of those who benefit from them is merely fodder for laughs (and bloody, gruesome deaths). And the whole notion of naming the villains Lobo and having their family crest be a wolf is simple distraction—so don’t anticipate any werewolves either. No, this film is neither deep emotionally nor narratively.

If it sets up a (new) future MonsterVerse, as some are speculating, you wouldn’t know it (sorry, Easter eggs calling back to its literary and cinematic origins do not automatically a franchise make). The film is a horror romp, plain and simple. It’s the makings of a buddy comedy where Renfield’s slave of a demon and Rebecca’s chicken in the on-the-take henhouse decide to rise against their systems of oppression to save themselves … and maybe the world. But definitely themselves first.

The gore is wild and the fight choreography uses every bit of it to impale enemies with arm bones while keeping Hoult and Awkwafina in shock towards what they’re seeing and doing. It’s entertaining to watch Schwartz as a bad guy (because he’s still a dweeb) and always a pleasure to see Aghdashloo on-screen, but the real draw is Cage chewing scenery like it’s his only chance to continue breathing.

I have to believe he’s overdubbed his entire performance too since the pointed teeth have his mouth moving in ways that don’t seem physically able to maintain whatever accent he’s pulling off. He’s having a blast right alongside us as Renfield pushes beyond his usual hemming and hawing to finally fight back (with the help of insects since all insects apparently hold the necessary elements able to trigger Dracula’s powers within a human familiar’s body). The movie ultimately delivers everything it promises as a result, a fact that makes it successful if not inherently “good.”

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(from left) Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) and Dracula (Nicolas Cage) in RENFIELD, directed by Chris McKay. © 2023 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved. Photo Credit: Michele K. Short / Universal Pictures.