Let's Talk About Renfield

One of the things I want to do with this blog is present some of my reviews and comments on different horror related movies, books, and stories. It’s not that I have any expertise on such a thing but because, as they say, “everyone has an opinion.” And by God, I’m going to express mine!

Let’s talk about a movie I saw recently. It isn’t really a horror film, per se, but it has many of the images the horror genre is known for.

Let’s talk about Renfield, the pseudo comedic action sequel to the original 1931 Universal monster movie, Dracula.

Starring Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: First Class, Mad Max: Fury Road) as Dracula’s familiar, Renfield. His job is to roam the world of daylight searching for people to feed his master, played deliciously by Nicolas Cage. A chance meeting with Awkwafina’s Rebecca, a New Orleans police officer desperate to find her father’s murder (and no, it was not Dracula) results in Renfield re-evaluating his relationship with his master.

The general story is intriguing but not overly original. The film is certainly action packed with lots of gory blood and guts scenes ala Deadpool which seems make for an engaging film.

The trailers for Renfield promised a comedic adventure and there certainly is plenty of comedy just not enough of it. Early on in the story, the jokes were well timed and induced a few hearty laughs from me. As the movie went on though, it got darker and darker, bloodier and bloodier, and the comedy disappeared. Maybe that was the plan all along but for me it missed the mark. The whole film seemed to want to be a Deadpool-in-a-horror-movie type of piece.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a horror writer and love great dark pieces. In fact, I find it hard to write comedy in general so most of my stories are usually pretty dark stuff. But this movie started with comedy and I wanted it to continue for the whole movie. It’s like watching a football game where a team plays great in the first half but can’t finish in the second half. It almost felt like two different movies.

The movie’s character development, especially the relationship between Dracula and Renfield were well written. The movie successfully gave Renfield an engaging and personable motivation that I’m sure tugged at the heart strings of every audience member.

Overall though, I did enjoy the movie. It had a lot of action and horror troupes that made things interesting.