'Renfield' lacks teeth, but it's got Nicolas Cage and that's enough

Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) is the long-suffering servant of Dracula (Nicolas Cage). After the vampire is horribly burned and injured, Renfield brings him to New Orleans to start over and revive himself. However, Renfield believes it's time to break the cycle and free himself from Dracula's grasp. However, when he crosses paths with a hard-charging cop (Awkwafina) who's trying to nail down a criminal syndicate (Ben Schwartz) once and for all, Renfield may have bitten more than he can chew...

Even at 90 minutes, 'Renfield' feels like a movie that's got too much going on and can't reasonably fit everything in. The pacing is all over the place and the editing makes it feel like it's cut and pasted together with a jigsaw and some PrittStick. Yet, there's one element that never quite gets the time it deserves and it's arguably the reason why most people would show up to 'Renfield' in the first place. Namely, Nicolas Cage as Dracula.

The opening scene shows how Renfield and Dracula met, utilising some clever CGI to splice Cage and Hoult into the '30s version of 'Dracula' with Bela Lugosi. In fact, you almost kind of wish that the filmmakers just made a kind of campy, black-and-white horror-comedy in the same way that Marvel's 'Werewolf By Night' took inspiration from late-night B-movie horrors of the '40s and '50s. Still, 'Renfield' is a unique perspective on one of the most overlooked horror characters in both cinema and literature, and tackles the realities earnestly - such as they are.

Yet, in between all this, you've got a fairly tired story involving a crime syndicate in New Orleans, led by Ben Schwartz playing a coked-up version of his character from 'Parks and Recreation' mixed with, well, Nicolas Cage's character in 'Face/Off'. This brings in Awkwafina's tough-as-nails cop and some over-the-top, superhero-adjacent action sequences featuring CGI blood everywhere and lots of body parts being ripped up and thrown around. The first time it happens, sure, it's exciting, but by the third and fourth time, you get the sense that 'Renfield' has just run out of story and is padding itself out with another action sequence.

The real selling point is, as previously mentioned, Nicolas Cage. Even though he's got a tendency to overact, his Dracula is surprisingly nuanced in parts. The makeup and costumes do all the work for him, but Cage plays Dracula like the twisted narcissist he truly is. When he growls that he's "the real victim" and berates Renfield with sharp-edged perception, you can see that the pop psychology behind it all has a heft to it. Nicholas Hoult, meanwhile, plays Renfield like a cross between a jittery Richard E. Grant and a wimpy rom-com cutout - never quite landing on either, but still making the best of it.

'Renfield' is a better concept than it is as a movie. The raw elements are there - Nicolas Cage as Dracula is inspired casting, Renfield's perspective is a fresh take, the New Orleans setting matches with the gothic sleaze it's going for - yet it never connects together as it should because it's so concerned with packing it all in tightly as possible. Chris McKay, directing his second live-action feature, feels more at home with comedy than he does with sci-fi action, as 'The Tomorrow War' attests. Yet, 'Renfield' just utilises the same jokes time and time again, and the over-the-top blood and gore are cartoonish and lack any impact.

'Renfield' doesn't quite sink its teeth fully into its potential, and at 90-odd minutes, it moves frantically through its action and story. It's a decent stab at something new in a character that's almost 130 years old, but sadly relies on tired gimmicks to get there.