Renfield movie review: Everything is just a little bit off

Guts gush with wild abandon while blood splatters with great enthusiasm. If you don’t have the constitution for such things, you may want to avoid.

Renfield is in cinemas now. Picture: Universal Pictures

Renfield had so much promise – and not just because it cut together one kick-arse, high-octane trailer that teased gross-out gore with a comedic slant.

It has a seriously impressive cast with Nicholas Hoult, who we know can do awkward humour thanks to his masterful turns in The Great and The Favourite, and Awkwafina, whose presence in any project usually signals fun times ahead.

And how do you argue against Nicolas Cage as a more-unhinged-than-usual Dracula, the prince of darkness and prince of bloody shenanigans. You can’t. It’s the over-the-top role Cage was born to do.

There are few screen delights more deliciously devilish than a deranged Cage, excitedly licking his lips as his bulging eyes hunger for gushing guts. It’s carnal and off-putting but weirdly seductive.

The ingredients are there, but when you take the souffle out of the oven, there’s a depressed hole right in the middle. Oops, that didn’t quite work.

An unhinged Nicolas Cage is a devilish delight. Picture: Universal Pictures

If you’re familiar with 120 years of Dracula stories, Renfield is Vlad the Impaler’s familiar, a bug-eating servant who does his master’s bidding.

In this modern Dracula story, the focus is shifted to a beaten down Renfield (Hoult), whose sad-sack existence has been stripped of all joy after being Drac’s lackey for decades. We find him at a support group for people addicted to co-dependent relationships.

It’s an intriguing premise, one which reframes the Dracula-Renfield relationship as a toxic, gaslighting marriage, and Renfield’s story arc as an empowerment journey in which he has to realise that he is enough for himself. It’s not exactly subtext, but it doesn’t need to be.

Renfield stumbles into the operations of the city’s drug barons, the Lobo family including erratic son Teddy (Ben Schwartz) and boss mum Bellafrancesca (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and teams up with the one cop who doesn’t seem to be on the take, Rebecca (Awkwafina).

Renfield is entranced by Rebecca’s righteousness and unwillingness to bow down to bullies, and aspires to be like her. He’s also just kind of smitten with her in general although Hoult and Awkwafina’s chemistry is MIA.

If this is also a rom-com, it’s not a convincing one. Picture: Universal Pictures

Renfield certainly elicits a giggle here, a chuckle there, but none graduate to a full-throated howl, the kind you need to use your belly muscles for. And therein lies the disappointment. It’s just not as funny as it should be.

Even the totally ridiculous plot would be forgiven if it was deployed with more verve.

There’s something off about its rhythm, as if director Chris McKay and editors Zene Baker, Ryan Folsey and Giancarlo Ganziano waited one too many moments before cutting to the next frame.

That’s what plagues Renfield – it’s a little bit off. You’ll wish it was 20 per cent more this or 20 per cent more that.

Except for the violence, that’s pretty much exactly where it needs to be. And it is not for the faint of heart or the easily queasied. The blood sprays with more enthusiasm than an automated lawn sprinkler while entrails burst out with wild abandon. There are also heads that detach and explode.

Renfield is plenty gory but the frequency and scale of it tips into cartoonish, so if you have a decent constitution for screen violence, it might make you wince, but it probably won’t put you off your dinner.

There’s a spicier, punchier and sillier movie trapped inside. Shame it couldn’t be coaxed out.

Rating: 2.5/5

Renfield is in cinemas now

Originally published as Renfield movie review: Everything is just a little bit off