Dracula
Critique • Quotes • Text • Dracula at the movies
First editionFirst publication
1897
Literature form
Novel
Genres
Literary, fantasy
Writing language
English
Author's country
England
Length
Approx. 180,000 words
Renfield (Nicholas Hoult, right) rebels against his master (Nicolas Cage) in 2023 movie.
Dracula's henchman fights back
Renfield (2023): Film, 93 minutes; director Chris McKay; writer Ryan Ridley, Robert Kirkman; featuring Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Adrian Martinez
This 2023 take on Count Dracula—and more precisely on his enslaved sidekick R.M. Renfield—is actually more fun than commentaries at the time gave it credit for.
Renfield is a comic poke in the side of the vampire myth, which old-time horror fans may resent but which anyone who doesn't take the genre too seriously is likely to find at least halfway entertaining.
To be clear, it is not comedic in the way Dracula parodies, like Love at First Bite or Dead: And Loving It, were in the previous century. There aren't a lot of jokes in Renfield. But, based on a story by Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman, the movie is a novel account of the codependent relationship of vampire and henchman suited to the 2000s.
Of the two Nicks headlining the battle, our sympathies lie with Nicholas Hoult as a modern preppie kind of Renfield. He's trying to cut his ties with his master, a marvellously over-the-top Nicolas Cage. His Dracula is a very old-school, old-country bloodsucker, a terrifyingly voracious narcissist who relies on his servant to protect him while he's asleep in his coffin and to bring him fresh victims when he's in feeding mode.
Renfield also has powers of his own, which he uses in battles with both his boss and a gang of criminals in New Orleans. There's lots of comic book gore and superhero-style violence to mess up his yuppie-aspiring clothes.
The opening scenes in the 2023 Dracula film, Renfield.
However, as innovative as the fight scenes are, they do eventually become tiresome and the psychological battle of the two leads becomes predictable. So does Renfield's relationship with female cop Rebecca Quincy (rapper-comedian Awkwafina) who appeals to his good angels.
The story is filmed in eye-catching garish colours, except for the beginning. The earliest part of Renfield taking place in Transylvania reproduces iconic black-and-white scenes from the classic 1931 Dracula film with the two Nicks dropped into the roles originally filled by Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye.
Maybe the nod to the old film is to nudge viewers into accepting the new one as the latest interpretation in a distinguished line of classic horror films. Or maybe it's to highlight how different the film that follows is from corny old predecessors, how differently that old master-slave relationship would work out in the new world.
Either way, I'm not sure it works as anything more profound than a mildly entertaining action flick with some forgettable pretensions to psychological depth. Which is better than many of the updated-Dracula films we've been subjected to.
— Eric
Critique • Quotes • Text • At the movies
1922, 1931, 1936–1945, 1958, 1960–1974, 1979, 1979–1995, 1992, 2000, 2000, 2006, 2023
