Jonah Naplan   April 15, 2023

Gleefully grimy, ultraviolent, and sticky from blood, sweat, and gore, “Renfield” is the type of whimsy and realized, yet overly eccentric, incredibly dark comedy that is fun but uneven, and a little too much to handle at certain points.

I can’t say I’ve ever itched for horror movies, though I enjoy the good ones, and admire when they intend to be, and succeed as, frightening flicks and funny farce. “Renfield,” directed by Chris McKay, commendably manages to be both at once, for better or for worse. On the one hand, this is a delightfully entertaining film, that is also emphatically and relentlessly bloody and gory. On the other, it has too much on its mind, and is a paper-thin narrative that’s simple to penetrate and mess with.

Nicolas Cage is Count Dracula, the ruthless, hungry, blood-sucking vampire, who’s recently settled into a new home in an abandoned hospital in New Orleans with his “familiar,” Renfield (an earnest Nicholas Hoult), by his side. As the title would suggest, this film is more so about Dracula’s lowly servant than it is about the Count. Renfield tends to all of Dracula’s needs in a routine fashion, including killing people in advance, before his master can devour their limbs, and drink their blood. But Renfield isn’t happy with this life.

The film opens with a shot of a nametag reading: Hello, My Name Is Renfield. Our protagonist is sitting in a meeting with a support group centered on getting people out of toxic relationships, led by an appealing Brandon Scott Jones. Everyone is saying that Renfield deserves happiness, yet they of course don’t understand the difficulties with leaving his boss in the dust. This is a smart turn of the tables, narratively. In one of the movie’s first scenes, the underling narrates as we follow Renfield’s life leading up to these moments, as the filmmakers flawlessly recreate the aesthetic of the 1930s “Dracula” movies, that will have you rubbing your eyes with realism.

All of this—the setup, the irony, the uber-violence presented even early on—is a gateway to a great movie. But the screenplay by Ryan Ridley and Robert Kirkman, of “The Walking Dead” acclaim, pretty quickly gets bogged down by narrative unevenness, inconsistency, and a boring subplot involving the only non-corrupt cop in the city of New Orleans, Rebecca (Awkwafina), who’s seeking vengeance for the murder of her father, a legendary police officer. Awkwafina and Hoult have fine chemistry together, but I was most tickled whenever Nicolas Cage was on screen.

Cage has said in an interview that among Superman and Captain Nemo from “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” Dracula was one of his all-time dream roles. Here, he gets his chance, and does not disappoint. Assisted by makeup artist Christien Tinsley, Cage is able to play Dracula with a gentleman-like sincereness, but also a sheer, gnarly attitude that is hilarious yet horribly intimidating. And throughout “Renfield,” Dracula is famished for the flavor of human flesh.

The gore and bloodshed in “Renfield” comes in buckets upon buckets upon buckets of pure red color. The film’s unrealistic approach to graphic violence makes it all seem a lot more silly than scary, let alone jarring. Much has already been written about how there’s too much violence in modern movies, and that teens will only want to go to a film if there’s a fair share of gruesomeness. Yes, my generation has absolutely become more desensitized to this level of violence than we should be, yet “Renfield” is the kind of movie that takes its bloodshed so incredibly lightly, as if the kind of obscure, yet original killings taking place are somehow common in the world of this film, that it kind of becomes easy to suspend our disbelief.

Aside from the obvious mystical vampires and monsters and magical power-ups that permeate this movie’s landscape, “Renfield” exists in a version of humanity that is far too dangerous to start a family in. Corrupt cops, criminals, and crime families run amok, namely that of Teddy Lobo (Ben Schwartz) and his mother (Shohreh Aghdashloo). In a scene that could be called the most violent of 2023 so far, Renfield and Rebecca face off against dozens of Lobo’s armed men in the outskirts of a studio apartment building. Limbs are sliced off, a face is ripped from the skull, and from what I can tell, a henchman gets ripped in half, too.

But with all the rips, slits, and slices it’s all in good fun, right? Yes, yes, I think so. As a film, “Renfield” works exceptionally hard to ensure that the audience is entertained, often sacrificing a sufficient plot in order to do so. I mentioned the word “farce” earlier in this review. The dictionary definition of the word is “a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.” That sounds like “Renfield.”

This film is incredibly over-the-top, yet that often comes to the film’s disadvantage, especially in a third act that feels completely rushed, other than a long segment that’s incredibly anti-climactic. Did I have fun? Absolutely. But with all the real world’s craziness, it appears as if Dracula has sucked the dear life out of one too many cliches.

Now playing in theaters.