Renfield (2023)

Renfield (2023)

 

6/10

 Starring

Nicholas Hoult

Nicolas Cage

Awkwafina

 

Directed by Chris McKay

 

The movie is not half bad, it has some Buffy the vampire slayer vibes. The comedy of the movie is well weaved into the horror of the character Dracula. If you have not read Bram Stroker’s Dracula book, you may be wondering who Renfield is. In the Books he is a mental patient who thinks he too can become like Dracula if he consumes life, so he starts to eat bugs and one-time birds. He did work for Dracula and in the end turned on him (will stop here in case you want to read the amazing book), but this movie did a lot of remixes with his character. So other than the name Renfield and the eating of bugs, nothing else about him in this movie was in the books. He ate bugs, but he was not at all stronger or faster or anything.

The movie shows us that Renfield was a lawyer hoping to broker an estate deal to change his fortune. This made him a willing slave to Dracula and later became his familiar. As a familiar he became immortal like Dracula, and he can gain superhuman strength and abilities when he eats bugs. They continued this relationship for almost a century, now in this present day they are living underground in filth and Renfield goes about capturing people and bringing them down for Dracula to eat.

Renfield is fed-up of working for Dracula and he wanted any possible out, so he joined a self-help group of codependents of abusers hoping that he can learn something that can free him from this burden.

This new situation and trying to free himself from Dracula led him to have self-doubt and he wanted a change. He was in a situation where an officer was going to be killed and he saved her. From then on, he did all he could to be able to stand up to Dracula and be a better person leaving the life of being Dracula’s slave behind. But his intent was not forthcoming, and he now faces the chance of losing all he cared for.

In the end, I can only say it is not half bad, it is not one of those fantastic movies that will make you want to run to go see it again. But if you are in the mood for some blood sucking movie, then this movie will not fill that void. It has gore, but a few bites.