Renfield (2023)
Sucks to be him
Remember that backlog I’ve been getting too? Well, made the mistake of playing some Dead by Daylight the other night - mainly because they added the Alien into it, but also it has Nicolas Cage in there now. Only reasonable thing to do after watching him run around screaming out lines is watch a movie with him in it - thus bringing us to now. Comedy horror makes it more palatable to folks beyond me, and Cage means we’ll be in for fun. Sharpen your fangs and close the shades, tonight we check out Renfield.
The story here actually doesn’t follow Dracula as it’s main - in fact, like the title would imply, it’s about Renfield. Renfield is filling us in on his current situation - which quickly leads to a flash back to explain the previous situation, which includes bug-chow powers and vampire hunters. Currently, he’s at a help group, looking for victims - but he’s putting a spin on it. See, he doesn’t necessarily like this cycle he’s been engaging in with Dracula, the feedings and the violence - so he’s looking for some bad blokes to turn into blood bags instead of the innocent folks. It doesn’t really pan out all that well - and his attempts at trying to improve his own life only escalates the outbursts from Dracula. All of this runs afoul a crime syndicate and the one cop in the entire precinct who hasn’t been bought out by them, and you can only imagine the chaos and body count when they all collide together.
It’s not all body parts and story though - there’s some humor in there. Yes, most of it is pretty dark humor, like beating a dude with his own arms - but there’s plenty of moments to laugh at as far as running gags go like the “Screw Kyle” lines. Some of it is slapstick like, some of it is all in the delivery, and some of it is as low hanging as it can get - but quite frankly there’s no way the movie was targeted at children so anyone suddenly surprised by the crudity of some of the jokes really should have seen it coming. Some of it runs little easter eggs of sorts through vampire lore - like Dracula constantly getting invited in to places before going in. Most of it is more violent humor in all honesty - that kind of “did that just happen” sort of chuckle you get when you watch that one parkour bad guy get blown up by an RPG in that one Punisher movie. Will it be for everyone? No. Is it good for the folks that enjoy it - it certainly helps keep the mood pretty festive for sure.
A good chunk of the line humor comes from actor deliveries. I feel that this part will be the biggest hit or miss - sometimes an actor feels like maybe they are playing it way too straight or goofy. When it works - like dropping lines about how they’ll never see crazier crap then they just saw - it works great. When it doesn’t - like the cop continually stopping to look over her shoulder after talking to her sister - you’ll just be left feeling a little like you missed the punch line. I wouldn’t necessarily say anything here is badly acted though - it feels like it’s all intentional, and the actors all feel like they are playing to their roles as direct as possible. Our main is where we get the most journey from, as intended, and in turn he feels like he has a bit more range than a lot of the others as he tackles things internally and externally. Dracula has good amount of range to him as well, with Cage pulling some good swings from bitey and evil to sad and convincing - even when he gets to spend a good amount of time in various amounts of makeup. Most the bad guys? Well, they fall the same as the rest really - the do a good job acting to what I think they were intended, whether that intention is good or generic.
Camera! Action!
Like I said with the actors - the main character is where the growth is. He’s a different person by the end of the movie, and you get to get in his head a bit through his narratives and on screen actions. It’s a good ride, and the actor makes him pretty likeable so you end up rooting for him. Our main cop feels like she’s driven - but she can almost feel cartoony at times, which in hindsight is kind of fitting for the movie. She doesn’t really advance as a character, but does serve as a great acting force to help the main character proceed on his path of advancement. Dracula feels like you imagine Dracula would - perhaps a bit batty (like I could go an entire review without a vampire pun). Most the criminal bad guys, well they get to just be there. A few get to visually stand out, but for the most part they are as interchangeable as can be with any old villain and you’d probably never even notice the difference. They do, however, make for some great action scene fodder.
Yeah, that’s right, this thing has some fights. It almost plays more into the comedy-drama and action side of things than it does any real horror elements - unless you count Renfield’s bug powers splattering folks to be horror. There’s some martial art style fights in there, but most don’t take long before something cartoonish starts happening from the super-human strength of our main hopped up on his bug snacks - like literally ripping a dudes face off. It can be brutal, but somehow the absurdity of it always stops it from feeling too real, like some live action cartoon. This works pretty well into the comedy side of it - usually enhanced by lines actors are delivering - but still spices the movie up with some good visual fights and “ouch” moments to liven things up. The effects that tie into it are good - but also most the time not too realistic, so it’s joking but looks good. The cosmetic stuff, like Dracula’s various make up stages - also look real good. Costumes, as in the actual clothes people wear as opposed to the makeup, are also pretty good at doing their job. Dracula looks like Dracula, Renfield looks a bit old or wacky depending on which point we’ve gotten too, and a few of the criminals actually have some pretty cool designs to make them stand out for however limited a screen time they have.
Despite all the goofy and violent stuff going on here, the movie does have quite a lot to say about toxic relationships and breaking out of them. Yeah, it’s all told through a comedic dark Dracula tinted pair of glasses, but it is there for someone who wants to think about it. There’s also the entire bit you could pick on from the “good guys don’t win” angle of the criminals and buying up all those police officers, or the “killing bad guys better than innocent folks” debate. It’s not exactly so much depth of thought to everything that I think serious drama-hounds will find an absolute super-buffet of things to sink their teeth into, but it is certainly better than nothing. It’s somewhat nice though to see something so heavy on the relationships that doesn’t feel like a generic romance story though - and makes it feel a lot more wide reaching in turn.
It’ll blow your mind.
I had a lot of fun with this, and got a good few laughs as well. It’s pretty much every bit as entertaining as I felt the trailer made it look - which in turn tells me that the trailer does a good job of showing me what the movie was going to be. That said, given it’s at least part comedy the funny bits will be hit or miss depending on the person - I laughed, I chuckled, I laughed at some comments that my watch friends made and vice versa. None of the movie came off as bad to me - some parts weren’t particularly as effective as they may have been intended to be in my particular case, but I was never really bored or wishing I was somewhere else - mostly just waiting to see how things were going to play out and laughing when they did in some comically grisly way.