Ty Watches "Renfield"
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Over the weekend my wife and I watched "Renfield". I had wanted to see this movie in the theater, but never made it out. I also saw that the reviews were kind of tepid and that kept me home. I figured it would be streaming sometime soon, and lucky for me, Peacock had it exclusively. I guess I could have gotten it on Prime, but I would have had to pay. So I am glad that we have Peacock for reasons like this. When I told my wife what we were going to watch, she got excited as well. We both wanted to watch it, so we used our date night.
I have to say, I loved this movie. It was gory, funny, has an excellent cast and was a blast. I enjoyed every minute of this movie. I was on board from the start and that never wavered for me. I believe my wife felt the same. For people that may not know, "Renfield" stars Nicolas Cage as Dracula, a role he was born to play, and Nicolaus Holt is his familiar, Renfield.
The short synopsis is, the movie takes place from Renfield's point of view. It shows what he has to do, how he became a familiar and how he is in a codependent, toxic relationship. They even go as far as to put Renfield in a support group for people in his position. The movie uses that plot line and then goes kind of nuts with all the other stuff. I appreciated the fact that they used a different tact to show the relationship of Dracula and a familiar. I was on board with the telling. And Cage and Holt were fully bought in. They were giving it their all. Holt was exceptional. He plays this put upon, dorky, quiet guy very well. I bought him. I rooted for him. I wanted him to get out of this toxic relationship. It was a fine acting job. Cage, as I stated before, felt born to play this role. We all know Cage as the guy he is now. He is over the top and he doesn't hide that. He goes for it in any role he takes on. And he seems to be having the time of his life here. I read about all the research and people he based his character off of and it makes me like his performance even more. This is perfect for him.
The cast outside these two is pretty wonderful. Ben Schwartz plays a mob kid and he goes for it. I'm used to seeing him play odd, funny people. Here he gets to do goofy stuff, but he also has some more action style moments, and he does a good job. Shohreh Aghdashloo plays the mob boss. She is Schwartz' mom and she has one of the coolest voices I've ever had the pleasure of hearing. Awkwafina is a cop who is out there fighting for what is right. I mentioned during the movie that I love this career arc for her. She is a very solid actor and I like that she is doing movies like this, then doing a great tv show and then showing up in Marvel movies. She's more than earned this. Brandon Scott Jones, who is having a moment as well, is the leader of the support group and he is funny and uplifting in this role. They did a great job of casting this movie.
The movie is also very gory, but it is almost cartoonish gore. It didn't make me queasy or anything. It actually made me laugh. And, outside of the toxic relationship stuff, I liked learning about Renfield's past. Awkwafina had a good backstory and I bought why she was so frustrated. Cage crushed. Schwartz did a good job being this, essentially, a nepo baby. The writers had fun. The director did a fine job. They didn't take themselves too seriously, and that is why this movie works for me.
While not as good at telling a vampire story like "What We Do in the Shadows" does, I'd much rather watch "Renfield" before I turn on a "Twilight" movie or watch one of those brooding vampire shows or movies. "Renfield" is a well done horror comedy that I will definitely watch again.
Ty
Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.
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