Renfield Review: Nicolas Cage Sinks His Teeth into Dracula in Lame Vampire Comedy – slantmagazine

Lengthy the butt of jokes about his explosive, unpredictable performing model, Nicolas Cage is presently within the midst of an important reversal of fortune, as he’s being embraced, each critically and commercially, in a approach that he hasn’t been because the early Nineteen Nineties, if ever. But when Cage’s style for the intense is lastly being taken critically in broader circles, the second wind that’s empowering his profession continues to outcome, extra instances than not, in movies which are frustratingly dialed into the notion of shrouding his manic depth in thick blankets of winking irony.

The newest living proof is Chris McKay’s Renfield, which dangles the intoxicating prospect of watching Cage sink his enamel into the position of Rely Dracula however delivers it within the type of a sort of gig economic system send-up centered on his assistant, Renfield (Nicholas Hoult). In Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Renfield is a bug-eating madman hopelessly in thrall to his undead grasp, however right here he’s largely a put-upon errand boy, one for whom procuring recent victims for the boss is simply one other tedious job alongside taking his blood-spattered cloak to the dry cleaners.

There’s comedian potential in following Dracula’s put-upon procurer, however the movie shortly will get caught in the identical rut that defines a lot up to date comedy cinema. That’s, the order of the day right here is much less constructing setups and punchlines than having characters pull an extended face.

The latter is especially embodied by Rebecca Quincey (Awkwafina), a police officer who patrols the New Orleans neighborhood the place Renfield and Dracula transfer at first of the movie. As she turns into uncovered to the grisly actions of her new love curiosity, she’s frequently left with nothing to do however state aloud no matter gory brutality she witnesses, as if verbalizing it constituted a joke. Of the numerous examples of this, one which stands out is the second that Rebecca, upon seeing Renfield slice by a person’s arms utilizing nothing greater than a restaurant serving plate, quizzically asks, “Did you simply sever a person’s arms utilizing a serving dish?”

For his half, Hoult performs Renfield as a present of two-dimensional codependency, his eyes downcast in Dracula’s presence and his phrases meekly trailing off each time he tries to talk up for his personal wishes. And when there are jokes, they cowl matters so hackneyed that the actors appear as in the event that they’re about to wink on the digital camera. There are a number of riffs on ska music, a style about which each conceivable joke was already made earlier than the top of the twentieth century.

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Moreover these stale one-liners, a lot of Renfield’s comedy rests on the extremity of its bloodletting, which runs effectively previous the sight of fangs sinking into necks right into a realm of seemingly infinite dismemberment and disembowelment that produces a stage of blood on the order of an Evil Useless movie. Renfield, bestowed with tremendous power by his grasp, is simply as able to ripping aside individuals as his boss, and his makes an attempt to focus on solely the seediest parts of society allots him a morally guilt-free romp by the viscera of varied criminals and mobsters.

If the gore is probably too maximalist, it nonetheless brings to the fore McKay’s skills. The filmmaker comes from an intensive background in animation, which can clarify why a film a couple of notoriously sunlight-averse creature is so brightly coloured and ebulliently lit, a mirrored image of Renfield’s efforts to extricate himself from his boss’s affect. Even Dracula’s lairs are coloured in sickly phosphorescent greens that match his pallid and rotted flesh.

Actually the movie’s motion has greater than slightly cartoonishness to it, what with the sight of Renfield tearing off assailants’ limbs and utilizing them as golf equipment suggesting Tom and Jerry in extremis. Sadly, these moments are rare in comparison with the leaden self-actualization comedy, and almost each memorable picture was used for the movie’s purple band trailer.

Renfield’s give attention to Dracula’s beleaguered assistant finally spoils its finest aspect: Cage’s really dedicated and impressed efficiency. The actor takes cues from many Draculas of movies previous—from the Japanese European drawl and arch hand gestures of Bela Lugosi to the unpredictable temper swings of Christopher Lee—however he filters them by his personal array of oddball mannerisms, corresponding to an abrupt titter within the midst of a growling menace or a bobbing head motion, suggesting a chook pecking at an object, making an attempt to find out if it is perhaps meals.

Cage is the one particular person concerned in Renfield who nails the script’s codependency angle, orienting Dracula’s established skills to hypnotize others completely round a cajoling, manipulative set of phrases that break down the emotional defenses of Renfield and others with none want of magic. It’s a seductive, grotesque, hilarious efficiency, and it’s one which satirically reinforces Dracula’s taunts of Renfield’s inadequacy and weak spot by saying every thing that Renfield needs to say on his personal behalf much better and in additional entertaining vogue.

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