I’m a bottom with self-esteem issues my whole life, so I’m used to doing what other people say, even if it’s not good for me. In that sense, me and Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) have a lot in common. As the titular character in Chris McKay and Robert Kirkman’s Dark Her action-comedy, Renfield has followed the lamentable whims of Dracula (Nicolas Cage) for decades. He murders innocents to provide fresh blood, and the old Goth dry-cleans his master because he is too lazy to turn into a bat and do it himself. Years of neglect wears out anyone, even familiars who can eat bugs whenever they want and gain superhuman strength.
One day, he joins a self-help group for fellow citizens bound by toxic relationships and inadvertently kills his hated partner for Dracula. After murdering a ska-obsessed cocaine dealer and attracting the attention of local gangsters and law enforcement, Renfield embarks on a grotesque and endearing journey of self-discovery. Often struggles to land on a consistent tone and relies a little too much on predictable punchlines, but Renfield is one of the freshest horrors I’ve seen in a while in his comedy. It’s one. You likely saw Nicolas Cage hum it as Dracula and needn’t sell it any more, but the truth is, he’s the lone highlight of a movie full of hilarious and grim ideas.
Rebecca Quincy (Awkwafina) is the moral positivity beacon Renfield needs in her life. While she reprimands a drunk driver for corrupt police, Quincy has a secret desire to hunt down the mob under Teddy Lobo (Ben Schwartz) and avenge her father’s legacy. increase. This whole setup is delightfully self-aware, and takes the time to stress that we shouldn’t take seriously that this strange world is teeming with dumb cops, cranky vampires, and overconfident gangsters. Yet the heartfelt message of self-acceptance still shines through, in part, due to how the film as a whole tends to be overzealous. I expected a quirky romantic comedy, but the end result resembles John Wick meets the Addams Family.
An early action scene in a seedy bar is terrifyingly violent, with amputated limbs used as makeshift melee weapons and Holt chopping off arms from unwilling foes with a platter. The characters constantly make fun of all the absurdities, whether by frequent inside jokes or laughably corrupt police. Might be so be a bad idea. But it’s sold for laughs, only to stumble when serious dialogue tries to stray from its path to hilarity. The side plot about the father only gets in the way and awkwardly tries to tie it into the main story.
Renfield’s struggles have been the most reverberant, partly because beneath all of the excess violence and vampire clichés, it sinks into toxic relationships and when it comes to relying on people who aren’t good for you. Because there’s a surprisingly relevant study of explicit self-doubt that goes into it. In an early scene, a grievously wounded Dracula recovers from a horrific injury, and the script roams around Renfield, plucking at his insecurities like untied threads, yet riddled with deception. He then cuts open his intestines and spills his organs on the floor, knowing that his blood is the only thing that can keep his best friend alive. The two are literally linked in blood, and this is more than just a convenient plot device that sneaks up on the final act.
Most of their scenes take me back to a time in my life when I had to face a similar demon inside someone much stronger than me. Dracula knows he has power here. That makes every moment Renfield reclaims his agency and pursues a life worth living that much more rewarding. The cute wardrobe-building montage is adorable because Quincy is sick of the idea of ​​bringing flowers to her office.
People will undoubtedly read Renfield as a queer character. . You’re naturally in a position to sympathize with Renfield, shaking your head desperately when you crawl back again to a man who only wants you to ruin him. It’s also consistent, because people often don’t realize they need to escape until they’re . Dracula is an asshole here, and Cage sells it in a drooling camp that oozes from every line. It’s both hilarious and ominous, and somehow infuses a palpable sense of dread into a turn I didn’t initially expect to take seriously. is strong against
Renfield is well aware of its own offbeat concept, and manages to subvert cheap dialogue and over-the-top violence into a central thematic message that is strangely heartfelt in its execution. Our protagonist may have been familiar with bad fashion sense and a penchant for murder for hundreds of years, but underneath it all, he’s still a human going through a very real dilemma. We want him to succeed, whether he eats bugs or uses his severed limbs as javelins to impale a corrupt SWAT team. but it’s kind of beautiful.
