Renfield had a lot promise – and never simply because it lower collectively one kick-arse, high-octane trailer that teased gross-out gore with a comedic slant.
It has a significantly spectacular solid with Nicholas Hoult, who we all know can do awkward humour because of his masterful turns in The Great and The Favourite, and Awkwafina, whose presence in any challenge often alerts enjoyable occasions forward.
And how do you argue in opposition to Nicolas Cage as a more-unhinged-than-usual Dracula, the prince of darkness and prince of bloody shenanigans. You can’t. It’s the over-the-top function Cage was born to do.
There are few display screen delights extra deliciously devilish than a deranged Cage, excitedly licking his lips as his bulging eyes starvation for gushing guts. It’s carnal and off-putting however weirdly seductive.
The components are there, however while you take the souffle out of the oven, there’s a depressed gap proper within the center. Oops, that didn’t fairly work.
If you’re conversant in 120 years of Dracula tales, Renfield is Vlad the Impaler’s acquainted, a bug-eating servant who does his grasp’s bidding.
In this contemporary Dracula story, the main focus is shifted to a overwhelmed down Renfield (Hoult), whose sad-sack existence has been stripped of all pleasure after being Drac’s lackey for many years. We discover him at a assist group for individuals hooked on co-dependent relationships.
It’s an intriguing premise, one which reframes the Dracula-Renfield relationship as a poisonous, gaslighting marriage, and Renfield’s story arc as an empowerment journey by which he has to grasp that he’s sufficient for himself. It’s not precisely subtext, nevertheless it doesn’t should be.
Renfield stumbles into the operations of town’s drug barons, the Lobo household together with erratic son Teddy (Ben Schwartz) and boss mum Bellafrancesca (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and groups up with the one cop who doesn’t appear to be on the take, Rebecca (Awkwafina).
Renfield is entranced by Rebecca’s righteousness and unwillingness to bow right down to bullies, and aspires to be like her. He’s additionally simply sort of smitten together with her basically though Hoult and Awkwafina’s chemistry is MIA.
Renfield definitely elicits a giggle right here, a chuckle there, however none graduate to a full-throated howl, the sort you should use your stomach muscular tissues for. And therein lies the frustration. It’s simply not as humorous accurately.
Even the completely ridiculous plot can be forgiven if it was deployed with extra verve.
There’s one thing off about its rhythm, as if director Chris McKay and editors Zene Baker, Ryan Folsey and Giancarlo Ganziano waited one too many moments earlier than slicing to the following body.
That’s what plagues Renfield – it’s just a little bit off. You’ll want it was 20 per cent extra this or 20 per cent extra that.
Except for the violence, that’s just about precisely the place it must be. And it isn’t for the faint of coronary heart or the simply queasied. The blood sprays with extra enthusiasm than an automatic garden sprinkler whereas entrails burst out with wild abandon. There are additionally heads that detach and explode.
Renfield is loads gory however the frequency and scale of it ideas into cartoonish, so you probably have a good structure for display screen violence, it’d make you wince, nevertheless it most likely received’t put you off your dinner.
There’s a spicier, punchier and sillier film trapped inside. Shame it couldn’t be coaxed out.
Rating: 2.5/5
Renfield is in cinemas now
Source: www.news.com.au
