‘Renfield’ movie review: Nicolas Cage & Nicholas Hoult struggle to save toothless ‘Dracula’ comedy

A still from ‘Renfield’

This is a movie I so wanted to love, being a die-hard fan of Nicolas Cage and the whole Dracula universe from the days of reading Bram Stoker’s Gothic novel as a prime example of invasion literature. Then there were also all those hysterical, helpless giggles from Mel Brooks’ 1995 horror comedy, Dracula: Dead and Loving It.

Though Brooks nailed it as vampire hunter Van Helsing, complete with a practically incomprehensible accent, and Leslie Nielsen was a hoot as the Prince of Darkness, Peter MacNicol got all the laughs as the hapless Renfield, with his fondness for bugs and flies.

A film about Dracula’s Familiar (a posher term for ‘slave’) turning rebelious in present-day New Orleans after attending a couple of support group meetings for co-dependants seemed just the ticket to while away the inexplicably hot summer afternoons.

Alas and alack! Renfield is just not what it set out to be. All the jokes are done in the trailer itself, and you are left with this horrible, unfunny dried up corpse of a film. Sigh. At a support group meeting, just as Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) begins to narrate his unhealthy relationship with his master, Count Dracula (Nicolas Cage), he does this quick rewind; going back to Transylvania in black-and-white and that land deal, the voyage across the sea, and further travels across to the United States all in search of fresh blood for his demanding master.

Renfield’s plan to hunt and kill abusive people for Dracula does not work out as planned. Dracula does not want the blood of bad people. Innocent blood from a bunch of nuns, tourists, or a bus-load of cheerleaders would be better, the count snarls. Also, while tracking a horrid boyfriend of one of the support group members, Renfield tangles up with the top crime family in the city, the Lobos.

Ted (Ben Schwartz), the Lobos’ heir apparent, is constant source of disappointment to his tough-as-nails mum, Bellafrancesca (Shohreh Aghdashloo), who built the business on the twin pillars of fear and respect.

There is also Rebecca Quincy (Awkwafina), a cop, who graduated the top of her class, but is stuck in the traffic department checking DUIs. Rebecca’s one ambition is to bring down the Lobos, who were responsible for the death of her father, an incorruptible policeman.

Though the top-notch cast give it their all, the jokes either do not land right or fizzle out. The gore is also not funny; that comic book gouts of blood, decapitations and dismembering has outstayed its welcome.

At the end of a very long 93 minutes, you are left with a movie that could have been a laugh riot, but is a rather toothless bleh bleh bleh. Now we can only wait in hope for The Last Voyage of the Demeter, the other movie from the Dracula universe slated for release this year

Renfield is currently running in theatres