Name: Renfield (2023)
Item: Renfield
Rating: 6
Author: Richard Lowe

6 / 10 Chris McKay

Renfield earns its 6 on the strength of one gloriously unhinged Nicolas Cage performance and a genuinely funny premise, dragged down by a film around them that does not know what it wants to be. The idea is great. Reframe Dracula’s servant Renfield as a man in a toxic codependent relationship with his narcissistic boss, and play it as a workplace self-help comedy about escaping an abuser, with Dracula as the ultimate manipulative partner. For stretches it works beautifully. Then it remembers it is also an action movie and a crime film, piles on subplots it does not need, and dilutes its own best joke. Cage is worth the price of admission. The film he is in is merely okay.

This is a flawed, overstuffed, frequently entertaining film that contains a much sharper one. Whenever it focuses on the central relationship and lets Cage cut loose, it sings. Whenever it wanders into its generic crime plot, it sags. The result is uneven, salvaged by its lead.

Nicolas Cage as Dracula

Nicolas Cage plays Dracula, and it is exactly the gift you would hope. Cage has spent a career perfecting a particular brand of committed excess, and the role of the most theatrical villain in literature lets him deploy all of it. His Dracula is monstrous, vain, petulant, and grandiose, a melodramatic narcissist who treats his familiar like a disposable assistant and throws tantrums worthy of the worst boss imaginable. Cage clearly relishes every moment, and his commitment to the role’s theatricality is the film’s greatest pleasure.

What makes the performance more than mere ham is that Cage finds the genuine menace beneath the camp. His Dracula is funny, but he is also frightening, a real predator whose charm is a tool of control. The film’s conceit of Dracula as an abusive partner works because Cage plays both the seductive manipulation and the underlying cruelty, capturing the exact dynamic of a controlling relationship. He is the rare performance that is simultaneously hilarious and genuinely unsettling, and he elevates everything he is in.

Craft NoteCage plays Dracula as both comic and genuinely menacing, refusing to let the camp undercut the threat. The character is funny because he is excessive and frightening because the excess masks real cruelty. When you write a villain meant to be both comic and dangerous, the danger cannot be sacrificed for the laughs. Cage’s Dracula works because his theatricality is itself a weapon, the grandiosity of a manipulator who makes everything about himself. Comedy and menace can coexist in a villain, but only if the menace stays real underneath the laughs. Let the humor express the threat rather than defuse it.

The Self-Help Conceit

The film’s smartest idea is its framing. Renfield, played by Nicholas Hoult, attends a support group for people in codependent relationships and slowly realizes that his centuries of servitude to Dracula are the ultimate toxic dynamic. The film uses the language of modern therapy and self-help to describe a literal master-and-familiar relationship, and the joke is sharp, recognizing the patterns of abuse in a supernatural arrangement and treating Renfield’s liberation as a journey toward healthy boundaries.

Hoult is genuinely good as Renfield, playing him as a sweet, beaten-down man slowly finding the courage to leave, and the central relationship has real comic and even emotional truth. When the film stays focused on Renfield’s struggle to break free of Dracula, using the self-help framework to illuminate the dynamic, it is fresh and funny and even pointed. This material is the film’s reason to exist, and it is strong enough that a tighter movie built entirely around it could have been excellent.

For WritersRenfield takes a supernatural relationship and maps it precisely onto a recognizable modern dynamic, the codependent or abusive partnership, finding fresh comedy and truth in the overlay. The familiar pattern illuminates the fantastical one. When you have a fantastical premise, mapping it onto a real and recognizable human experience can give it both humor and meaning. The master-familiar bond becomes a toxic relationship, and suddenly a centuries-old horror trope speaks to something the audience knows intimately. Find the real human dynamic your supernatural premise resembles, and let the overlay do the work.

The Overstuffed Plot

The film’s fatal weakness is that it does not trust its own best material. Around the sharp central relationship, it constructs an entirely unnecessary crime plot involving a drug-dealing crime family, a corrupt city, and a tough cop played by Awkwafina, none of which the film needs and all of which dilute its focus. Every minute spent on the generic gangster subplot is a minute away from the Renfield-Dracula dynamic that is the only reason to watch.

This bloat is the film’s undoing. The self-help comedy about escaping Dracula is a complete and satisfying idea on its own, but the film buries it under action sequences, crime-movie clichés, and tonal whiplash, as though it did not believe its premise could carry a movie. The hyper-violent action, while gory and occasionally fun, feels imported from a different film, and the crime plot is a generic time-filler. The result is a movie constantly distracting itself from its own strengths, and it pays for that lack of confidence.

CompareSet Renfield beside What We Do in the Shadows, the gold standard of modern vampire comedy, and the gap in discipline is clear. The latter commits fully to its premise and trusts it to sustain the film. Renfield has an equally strong central idea but loses faith in it, padding it out with action and crime-plot filler. Both have funny vampire premises. One believes in its joke enough to build a whole film on it. The other hedges, and the hedging is exactly what holds it back.

The Verdict

Renfield earns its 6 on a gloriously committed Nicolas Cage performance as Dracula and a genuinely sharp central premise of vampire servitude as a toxic codependent relationship. Cage is both hilarious and menacing, Nicholas Hoult is a sweet and effective Renfield, and the self-help framing finds real comedy and truth. It loses points for an overstuffed, unnecessary crime plot, imported action sequences, and a fundamental lack of confidence in its own best material. A flawed, uneven film containing a much better one, worth seeing for Cage and for the central conceit, even as the movie around them keeps getting in the way.

FAQ

What is the premise?
It reframes Dracula’s servant Renfield as a man in a toxic, codependent relationship with his narcissistic boss, Dracula, and plays it as a self-help comedy about escaping an abuser. The familiar master-familiar bond becomes a recognizable abusive relationship, which is the film’s sharpest idea.

How is Nicolas Cage as Dracula?
A gift. Cage deploys his full committed excess on the most theatrical villain in literature, playing Dracula as monstrous, vain, and grandiose, the worst boss imaginable. He finds genuine menace beneath the camp, making the performance both hilarious and unsettling. He is the main reason to watch.

Does the self-help angle work?
Yes, when the film focuses on it. Mapping a supernatural servitude onto a recognizable toxic relationship is fresh and funny, and Nicholas Hoult is genuinely good as the beaten-down Renfield finding courage to leave. This material is the film’s reason to exist.

What goes wrong?
The film does not trust its best idea. It buries the sharp central relationship under an unnecessary crime plot, generic gangster clichés, and imported action sequences, constantly distracting itself from the only thing worth watching. The bloat and lack of confidence are its undoing.

Is it worth watching?
For Nicolas Cage and the central conceit, yes, with lowered expectations. The Cage performance and the self-help premise are genuinely good, but the overstuffed crime plot and tonal whiplash drag the film down. Watch it for the parts that work and accept the parts that do not.