Review of Renfield, directed by Chris McKay

When I first saw that Renfield was a thing many months ago, I thought that I was going to see the movie. But then in the months leading up to its release, I would end up seeing that trailer so many times before movies that it ended up killing my excitement for the movie.

I think trailers are great for people who don’t go to the movies often, but as a film critic and someone who ends up parked in a theatre way too often, I start to roll my eyes at the corny ones when I think they’ve been seen too many times.

But somehow I ended up watching the movie anyways.

Anyways, I ended up spotting this in the library when I was in the middle of Nicholas Hoult renaissance. I had watched Warm Bodies and realized this was the time to go into the deep dive of Hoult’s movies, so I grabbed the DVD of the movie and ended up just watching it pretty quickly.

And man, this was dumb as well, but there were some moments that did make me laugh out loud.

Let’s get into the review, shall we?

Dracula’s faithful servant Renfield is getting sick of killing people for a living.

This movie is based on the now classic tale of Count Dracula and his loyal servant Renfield, who, despite being a licensed lawyer in his field, pledges to become the servant of Dracula. He’s the one who finds the souls the vampire is going to feed on, and when he ends up pledging to become Dracula’s wingman, he gains the skill of immortality and ends up having superpowers whenever he consumes bugs.

A century almost passes and now Renfield is very sick of his job, as Dracula isn’t treating him very well. They move to New Orleans after a close call with hunters, but Renfield begins to enroll himself in a therapy course with twelve other people.

There, he starts to gain the confidence to realize that he can untangle his experience with Dracula with his self-worth, and that if he wants to break free, he has the power to go off and say no.

He first decides to feed one of the group’s terrible husbands to Dracula so he can’t feel bad about it, but Renfield gets caught up with an assassin from a mafia family in the area.

The assassin’s boss tries to flee the scene, but we meet officer Rebecca, who is the other main protagonist of the movie.

At the same time, Dracula’s demands are increasing: he wants the blood of innocent people, not the criminals that Renfield has been passing off on him. He goes off trying to find food for his boss, but heads to a restaurant where he meets Rebecca.

An attack by the mafia occurs while they’re in there, and Renfield assists Rebecca in taking down the people attacking them. The two of them have a moment, which sparks something that will develop further throughout the film.

Mafia boss’s mother orders him to go find the man who did this to them, and he crosses paths with Dracula, who isn’t happy with Renfield’s disobedience. They make a pact, and Renfield and Rebecca help him with trying to sort out his feelings further.

He gets an apartment and decides to heal outside of the relationship with Dracula, and when Dracula finds out that Renfield has been helping the police, he kills everyone in the support group brutally.

Rebecca walks in on Renfield surrounding the dead bodies, but they go outside for the arrest and realize the cops are helping the gang members. Now exiled from her job, she decides to go with Renfield, who takes her to his apartment.

The cops find them, Renfield eats his neighbor’s pet bugs, they escape. Rebecca realizes that her sister Kate has bene kidnapped, and they decide to go in and rescue her sister. Dracula offers his blood to the near-dead Kate, Rebecca tricks him into coming into sunlight, and an epic final showdown then occurs.

Then we get a happy ending!

Overall Thoughts

It’s not high cinema, but I enjoyed Renfield enough to laugh at loud at how absurd it is at times. The actors aren’t taking this one too seriously, which makes it even more funny in the long run.

You kind of have to go into these movies with a lack of expectations, because if you do, then you’ll be thoroughly entertained. It’s camp, it’s a vibe, but I wouldn’t call it a high art form.

And that’s completely okay, and it’s okay if you disagree with me. Taste is so subjective depending on who’s watching and what perspective they’re bringing to the table.

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