“Renfield” is just not Nicolas Cage’s first blush with a vampire.
In 1988’s “Vampire’s Kiss,” he performed a New York literary agent who thought he was an immortal bloodsucker. His bug-eyed efficiency was basically the delivery of the over-the-top, kabuki-inflected mythology of Cage. Years later, it might launch a thousand memes — a form of digital model of changing into undead.
Thirty-five years later with “Renfield,” Cage is lastly taking part in the real article, full with bloodthirsty fangs and a dapper velvet smoking jacket. Casting Cage, our grandest of ghouls, as Dracula is so predestined that it nearly dangers being too on the nostril. The excellent news is that, no, he’s excellent as Dracula. The unhealthy information is that Cage’s Dracula is just a supporting function right here, making “Renfield” extra of a tasty morsel than a satisfying feast.
That’s no discredit to Nicholas Hoult, who performs Bram Stoker’s devoted henchman to Dracula in Chris McKay’s “Renfield,” which opens in theaters Friday. The movie, penned by Ryan Ridley, fashions Robert Montague Renfield much less as Dracula’s doting, “yes Master” lackey than a particular and delicate individual — or kinda individual; his supernatural powers are sustained, for some purpose, by consuming bugs — in his personal proper. “Renfield,” a quick and unfastened horror-comedy splattered high to backside with blood, is about Renfield attempting to interrupt freed from Dracula’s fearsome sway — “a destructive relationship” as Renfield describes in a self-help group.
It’s a nifty sufficient concept (Robert Kirkman will get a narrative by credit score) that the filmmakers have correctly chosen to not over complicate. Even although “Renfield” incorporates a monster with rising needs for world domination and an alarming variety of exploding human heads, the stakes are low on this Dracula spinoff. The tone is antic and blood-splattery, slotting in nearer to a gory, middle-of-the-road “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” episode than, say, the wittier “What We Do in the Shadows.”
Vampires have been in vogue for a while, however normally in additional extrapolated interpretations with larger sympathies for vampires — elegant, attractive or childlike — as worldly outsiders. Edging nearer to Dracula, himself, has been rarer, and it’s most likely an indication of the lesser, shlocky ambitions of “Renfield” that he nonetheless stays off to the aspect. But at any time when Cage’s Prince of Darkness is round, the film has a chunk.
Cage, returning to main studio territory after an typically thrilling, generally befuddling decade in indie pastures, is, as all the time, totally ready for the second. The actor, lengthy a loyal fan of F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu,” channels a few of the basic interpretations of Dracula — together with Bela Lugosi, over whom Cage is superimposed in an early flashback taken from 1931’s “Dracula” — whereas animating the character along with his personal comedian, campy rhythm. It could also be well worth the value of admission to see Cage’s Dracula set free a quick “Woo!” whereas awakening to a brand new sense of himself as a god.
Yet “Renfield” oddly gravitates away from tapping this wealthy vein to as a substitute devour the New Orleans-set movie with not simply R.M.’s bid for private freedom however a busy plot involving a neighborhood crime household and police corruption. Awkwafina co-stars as Rebecca Quincy, an sincere visitors cop who desires to avenge her father’s dying and produce justice to the Lobo household, a drug-dealing gang led by the matriarch Ella (Shohreh Aghdashloo), together with her much less sharp son, Teddy (Ben Schwartz), among the many lieutenants.
It’s simple to see the aim in a few of this: Bring in some humorous folks to populate the backdrop for Renfield’s tried succession from Dracula duties (which consist principally of bringing him contemporary corpses, ideally of extra harmless blood). Awkwafina is a welcome presence together with her personal comedy chops. But by attempting to amp issues up, McKay, the director of “The Tomorrow War” and “The Lego Batman Movie,” loses what must have been the movie’s focus.
Still, “Renfield” is gratifying sufficient in a disposable type of approach. A scarcity of self-seriousness is a top quality to be appreciated in any film like this. And Hoult manages to be remarkably candy whereas on the similar time utilizing human limbs to decapitate different victims. Some of the perfect scenes are of him sitting in on a assist group assembly to speak by way of poisonous relationships. (Brandon Scott Jones, who performs the group’s chief, is kind of good.) But “Renfield” by no means lets Cage actually sink his tooth into the film, leaving us nonetheless hungry for extra.
“Renfield,” a Universal Pictures launch, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for bloody violence, some gore, language all through and a few drug use. Running time: 93 minutes. Two and a half stars out of 4.
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