Review: Renfield

Renfield
Cert: 15 / 93 mins / Dir. Chris McKay / Trailer

To New Orleans then, a classically luscious setting with a nuanced past that is in no way properly utilised in Chris McKay's Renfield. A post-modern spin on the Dracula-mythos, our eponymous hero (Nicholas Hoult) is the embattled familiar/day-servant of the archetypal vampire (Nicolas Cage). Despite the dark lord's magnetic lure however, Renfield grows frustrated and despondent. Chancing into a group therapy session one evening, he begins to realise that there's more to (un)life if he can just make the right choices. The group have much to learn from each other. Additionally, chancing into a busy bar one evening, Renfield comes across the crime family running the city's underworld (Shohreh Aghdashloo, Ben Schwartz), and Rebecca (Awkwafina), the put-upon police officer who seems to be the only force for actual good this side of the Mississippi. The pair have much to learn from each other.

That's right, there are essentially two films going on, here. Both have a connection through the deconstruction of toxic relationships and both manage this with a pleasing amount of smirk-inducing (and in places guffawing) comedy, but The Vampire Sitcom and The Crime Caper never quite meet in the middle to make a cohesive whole. And rest assured, Renfield is not a horror flick; it's first and foremost an action comedy which happens to have horror-characters in it.

The main draw for a civilian audience is Nic Cage as Dracula of course, and our man puts in a very respectable and restrained performance as a six hundred year old narcissist. While the audience get value for money from Cage's smouldering and snarling, it's the needy, passive-aggressive side of the character where he's having the most fun, and this is where the majority of the film's snide humour lies. That said, in terms of emotional performance and understated comic timing, the headliner is thoroughly outshone by Hoult and Awkwafina, effortlessly dead-panning their way through a Ryan Ridley's script and emerging as far more likeable characters than the film probably deserves. The action scenes are well executed and - in places - gloriously over the top, but again they feel as if they've been lifted from a more high-octane thriller.

Almost every other version of this would exist to take potshots at therapy-culture and the fragmented priorities of modern life. Renfield tackles its subtext (or more properly just 'text') with a remarkably straight face, and is all the more heartfelt for it. The bad guys are The Bad Guys, not the people struggling to cope or those trying to help them. While the film certainly nods to the ridiculousness of their situations, they themselves aren't ridiculed. That sincerity itself feels slightly out of place in a studio comedy and adds to the air of a movie which can't quite find its place to ensure longevity. Even the screenplay itself realises in its final moments that huge elements of the story make little-to-no sense, and instead just comforts the audience with the knowledge that they've had a good time if nothing else.

With plenty of fantastic elements from a wide array of sources, Renfield never quite achieves the greatness of its potential. It is, at its beating heart, a Saturday night movie to be enjoyed with noisy friends and messy drinks. This in itself is pretty damned satisfying, so maybe that's the real lesson here...

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