I Watch Films: Renfield
Renfield
R M Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) was an English estate agent who tried to sell real estate to Count Dracula. Count Dracula (Nicolas Cage) turned out to be a vampire, made Renfield his familiar and Renfield spent the 20th century serving him; he gains super strength, speed and healing when he eats a bug. After an attack by vampire hunters Dracula is injured and they travel to a new city, New Orleans, where he licks his wounds and drains blood from victims Renfield brings him.
Renfield attends a codependency help group; although disenchanted with Dracula he’s mostly there to find victims; the abusers of the group members. He tracks one down, only to discover that he has double crossed the Lobo crime family and Renfield finds himself in between them and Apache Joe, a Lobo hitman (Tedward Lobo notes that his name is probably racist but no one is going to argue with him about it).
In the chaotic and violent aftermath Tedward is stopped by Rebecca Quincy (Awkwafina), a cop whose father was killed by the Lobos and who has been sent to traffic because she keeps making it personal. She arrests him, he gets out and Rebecca’s sister Kate, an FBI agent tells her to stop going after the Lobos, to leave it to her.
Dracula doesn’t like what he’s been getting, wanting the blood of the innocent, making suggestions about “…happy couples, unsuspecting tourists, a handful of nuns, a... a busload of cheerleaders.” Renfield goes to a restaurant and sees exactly these people. However Rebecca is there following clues from the crime scene and Lobos attack. Renfield swallows a bug and super-powers his way through them.
Bellafrancesca Lobo (Shohreh Aghdashloo), Tedward’s mother and head of the Lobo crime family orders Tedward to attack Renfield; they discover Dracula’s lair. Renfield decides to follow the suggestion of the self-help group, leave Dracula and make a witness statement to the police. But Dracula is now in league with the Lobos and will not allow Renfield to leave his service.
Some good jokes which manage to defuse some of the extraordinary violence. Nicolas Cage does a fantastic Bela-Lugosi-as-Dracula impression in some of his scenes, managing to capture both threat and ludicrous high camp. It’s a violent, funny, Dracula horror-comedy.
Watch This: Violent and funny Dracula horror-comedy
Don’t Watch This: Violent and funny Dracula horror-comedy
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