Hear me out: Nicolas Cage deserves an Oscar nomination for his performance as Dracula in Renfield.
I know, I know. It’s Nic Cage, dude from Con Air and Kick Ass and a couple dozen direct-to-video cash-in schlockfests. And he’s playing Dracula in a cornball B picture directed by a former Robot Chicken animator named Chris McKay. But actors have gotten Oscar nominations for lazier performances in much crappier movies. And there’s nothing lazy about Cage’s Dracula — if anything, he put way too much effort into it! But as Penn Jillette said, “The only secret of magic is that I’m willing to work harder on it than you think it’s worth.”
It’s appropriate that, when Renfield finally got to be the star of his own story, Dracula steals the show. R. M. Renfield appears in Bram Stoker’s novel as a patient in an insane asylum who worships Dracula. He eats live bugs to gain their life force, like a vampire drinks the blood of living victims. (His doctor describes him as “zoophagous maniac,” proving they just don’t diagnose ’em like they used to.) Dracula gets Renfield to do his bidding by dangling the prospect of immortality, but never actually helping his thrall go full vamp.
Nicholas Hoult stars as Renfield, who we first meet in a group therapy session for people in codependent relationships. He recognizes the stories of abuse he hears from his own life with the big D. He and his bloodsucking boss have fallen into a pattern of dysfunction. They move to a new place, start to hunt in earnest, but Dracula gets too greedy, and the locals are tipped off. Then a vampire hunter, usually from the Catholic Church, arrives, and there’s a big fight in which Dracula is almost killed. Renfield has to pick up the pieces, move to a new town — this time, it’s New Orleans — and start collecting victims while Dracula convalesces.
With the encouragement of therapist Mark, Renfield takes the bold steps of getting his own apartment and wearing clothes that are not black. He still has to search for victims to feed his personal monster, but he decides to prioritize the abusers who are making his new friends’ lives hell. This leads to a confrontation with gangsters inside a Mardi Gras float warehouse where Tedward (Ben Schwartz), the scion of the Lobos crime family, sees Renfield’s magical murder talents first hand. When a beat cop named Rebecca (Awkwafina) investigates the bloody scene, she sees that the clues lead back to Renfield and Dracula, embroiling her in an escalating conflict between the drug cartel and the dark lord.
Hoult has plenty of choices for inspiration, from Klaus Kinski to Tom Waits. He has the haircut and bug eyes of Dwight Frye, who originated the character in 1931. But Hoult seems to be channeling Harvey Gullén’s Guillermo from What We Do In The Shadows. When he and Cage share the screen, sparks fly.
Cage is not a madman. He is an extraordinarily talented screen actor in the tradition of James Cagney. His approach to Dracula is downright scholarly, mixing bits of Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, and Gary Oldman with his own personae. His every gesture is perfectly calibrated for the moment. If you’re used to seeing a bored Cage vamp in roles that are frankly beneath him, watching him sink his teeth into Dracula will be a revelation.
Unfortunately, this movie is also beneath him. Awkwafina, bless her heart, is left completely at sea in a role that shouldn’t have existed. The whole crime family vs. corrupt cops subplot is stupid, disjointed, and unnecessary. It seemingly exists only to provide Marvel-esque moments of fight choreography — except the fights are the most boring part of the MCU movies! “Renfield tries to save his therapy group from an angry Dracula” is plenty of plot for a film where the real meat is a Nic v. Nicolas thespian cage match. Every second they’re not on screen is wasted.
Renfield is a must for Cage watchers, which are legion, and vampire obsessives who walk the night but could use a good chuckle to break up the gothic ennui. Others will find it a pleasant but ultimately bloodless diversion.