“I will no longer tolerate abuse. I deserve happiness!”

Renfield

Horror comedy Renfield starts promisingly with a contemporary riff on Dracula’s familiar that refashions him as an absurd action superhero (who needs to consume bugs for his powers) protecting his vampire master whilst attending support groups for those stuck in co-dependent relationships. His origins are explained via a montage of recreated scenes from Tod Browning’s 1931 Dracula, with an arch Nicolas Cage stepping into Bela Lugosi’s cape. Nicholas Hoult works well as the beleaguered Renfield dreaming of freedom, though he perhaps leans too far into the everyman role. Cage naturally revels in an entirely evil character and theatrical overacting even through layers of prosthetics. Unfortunately this energy is paired with a hackneyed B-plot as Awkwafina’s traffic cop tries to take down a crime family to avenge her murdered father. It does little other than provide an excuse for Renfield to engage in cartoonish action sequences where unexpected gore is frequently a punchline in a similar way to The Boys. Director Chris McKay has comedy experience — he edited The Lego Movie and directed Lego Batman — but it tends to be the visual gags and physical humour that land. Renfield tries to breathe fresh life into the lore of Dracula, and it does so briefly, but this is a reanimated corpse rather than a resurrection.

6/10