Renfield

Don’t expect an Oscar winning masterpiece when you watch “Renfield”, it’s a chaotic fun with buckets of blood and lots of violence kind of movie. Both Nicholas Cage as Dracula and Nicholas Hoult as Renfield are superb with excellent acting and a dynamic master – servant relationship.

Cage is one of my favourite actors, despite his history of turning down non-leading roles in studio films, he signed on to play Dracula. It was a life-long dream of his to portray the legendary figure. He even had his teeth filed down in order to have a more natural-looking fit and better enunciation while wearing his Dracula prosthetics. The movie industry can be such a strange world.

When I read that “Renfield” is categorised as a comedy horror, I was afraid it would be another heavy movie with tedious jokes. I was wrong, the slapstick humour and over the top action stunts make this movie a joy to watch. It also seems like there’s a big come back to “gore” in movies lately, the ripping of body parts, dismemberment, tons and tons of blood… Definitely a must watch for fans of the genre, I love this stuff.

I’ve always been a sucker for aesthetics, Dracula’s lair for example was amazing. It was shot in the abandoned Charity Hospital in New Orleans. I don’t know how many blood bags have been used to create this scene, but I did read that to the left of his chair, there’s a pile of 75 semi-fresh bodies. There’s a room at the back with at least 150 fully decomposed bodies, and there’s a blood smear where Renfield had to drag them across the floor. A lot of work and creativity went into this, some people have such awesome jobs.

If you don’t go in with too many expectations, this movie is definitely a good choice for a fun popcorn evening.