Renfield

Created by Robert Kirkman, written by Ryan Ridley and directed by Chris Mckay is this horror inspired action comedy. Nicholas Hoult plays Renfield a former property developer, until he met Count Dracula (Nicholas Cage) and becomes his “Familiar”, the Counts servant, responsible for finding him his victims, as well as keeping the house clean! Due to a previous incident, the Count and Renfield are now in an abandoned hospital in New Orleans as The Count recuperates. But Renfield is now having second thoughts about the health of his relationship with The Count. He starts attending a co-dependency support group, which he uses to both help him in his relationship as well as to find fresh food for The Count. After one meeting and a particularly messy bit of food hunting he meets a police officer, Rebecca Quincy (Awkafina) and finds himself dragged into a world with local crime family the Lobo’s and their son  Teddy (Ben Schwartz). Which puts Renfield In a battle to escape The Count and help Rebecca rescue her sister.

With the director of the Lego movies behind this it should be no surprise that Renfield is an irreverent take on the  Dracula and vampire film genre and has real fun in this part horror, part action, part comedy romp.

While it has received some mixed reviews I really enjoyed this. It knows what it is trying to do and had plenty of fun doing it. The cast are well judged, Hoult is perfect in the Renfield role getting the balance right between the under the thumb servant and the bug eating “fighting machine”. It will come as no surprise that Cage is clearly having a great time chewing any scenery, and necks, that he can find. Awkafina brings her Awkafina shtick to the role, but not only that she also makes a good fist of being an action hero.

Renfield is a lot of enjoyable fun. Its cast is well judged with Hoult and Cage having a blast with their roles. It moves at a pace, with plenty of humour, action and a long supply of entertainingly gory endings for numerous “henchman”. It’s as fun a 90 minutes as you can spend with the “Dark Lord”.