renfield

2023 Directed by Chris Mckay

Horror Marathon Day 10 Film 15

Renfield decides to get out of a relationship with the toxic master that he serves- Dracula. It’s all obnoxiously on the nose as Robert Kirkman of The Walking Dead fame doesn't seem to know where to articulate a plot - but rather scenarios for characters to exist in. To belabor this the film goes through Renfield's self help group and repeating their mantras. I suppose it's comedic fodder, but hardly much insight is there. Nor is there much for Renfield's character beyond this- capturing victims for Dracula's rebirth. Hoult plays this as wide eyed naive- without much of insight as to his own culpability.

Thankfully there's Nicolas Cage pushing the silly aspects of Dracula- festering and shivering with creepy flirtation and bombastic ego. Heads go pop! Bodies explode like bloodpests and limbs casually go by the wayside. A chuckle here and there certainly. Then someone decides to drop Awkwafina as a cop in the middle of this- I really thought this was supposed to be set in New Orleans? No engrossing swampy Southern Gothic traits are here however. Awkwafina certainly does her best to be a straight forward character- but the meager motivations just really don't add any meat to the tale. They also somehow manage to do nothing with the menacing Shohreh Aghdashloo as the local Mob boss and femme fatale. Chris McCay's direction mops up the mess with decently choreographed violence as modern audiences have expected from John Wick. But any of the kills are wrapped up too neatly too- given a cure-all to any messy bits that could have happened- essentially enough to warrant an awful "it was all a dream" epilogue.