Rating: B+/C
Dir: Chris McKay
Star: Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz
“He’s a monster, a goddam fucking monster!”
With Nic Cage on board as Dracula there’s no danger of any overacting here. Nope. And, meanwhile, let’s take the Dracula-trope and royally fuck with it, making Drah-cul’ahhh pretty much a tertiary character – which is perhaps odd given Nic Cage’s reputation for turning down non-leading roles. Instead we have the very good Nicholas Hoult playing the eponymous Renfield and D’s familiar, a chap who after ninety years of servitude and eating bugs, has become bored, and unhappy.
This is the familiar’s tale. A familiar now in therapy in a self-help group devoted to those trapped in abusive relationships, whilst he and his master hide away in New Orleans to recover, having scraped a thin escape from a pack of vampire hunters – as you do. The support group is the perfect vehicle for the familiar to provide two functions. Equaliser, in culling the abusers, and Ocado, in delivering the ‘left overs’ to D.
This is all good fun. Well shot, silly, horrible, energetic and light enough for easy consumption. Yup. Wonderfully silly… with some cute dialogue along the way:
“…fetch me the hand!’
“…palate cleanser?”
There’s a bit more to the story running up to the turning point, but eventually we find officer Rebecca Quincy (Awkwafina) and Renfield at the same restaurant. Albeit with very different goals in mind. For ‘various reasons’ a mob-boss has ordered a hit on Rebecca and it is after ‘a bit of a kerfuffle’ that she finds Renfield slightly compromised by the surrounding field of dead hit-men. (What’s the past tense for a hit-man? Hitted-man, hit-corpse, slippery-pool-of-blood?) Anyway, just as Rebecca is considering arresting Renfield some rather naughty corrupt cops arrive, and it’s that old old story whereby cop finds familiar, chaos ensues, familiar saves cop, all wrapped up in a cute action scene with lots of blood, decapitations, and deaths, along with a few hints at impending world domination thrown in for good measure. So. Normal fare.
The role of immortal and insatiable God is actually a good role for Cage and he takes it well. I can see why it was seemingly his life-long dream to play the role and, in playing D, he is actually quite restrained. For him. Ish. Mostly. Oh, and spoiler alert, Dracula, despite any witty dialogue, isn’t a nice chap. No really!
So there’s a small moment to gather our collective breaths before the plenty ‘o’ gore hilarity of the finale can kick off.
“This whole family is fucking nuts!”
Which can mean only one thing. It’s time for a montage. Yup. 10/10. Hilarious!
So. In summary. Nicely shot, good music throughout (esp end credits), with a nice overall feel and vibe, good energy and some more than good enough acting thrown in along the way.
If you were looking for a ‘feel-good-Dracula-blood-fest-comedy’ set with a very ‘Vamp’ vibe, well then look no further.
“Ska’s not dead!” B+
[Phil Brown]
I’m really not sure quite how I feel about this. I was adequately entertained, and it does offer a new angle on vampire mythology, concentrating on Dracula’s minion, Redfield (Hoult). This uses his relationship with his master as a metaphor for toxicity in general, with Dracula (Cage) a controlling narcissist, and Renfield a codependent who is willing to sacrifice anything personally, to sustain the partnership. Oddly, the story is laid out within the context of horror-comedy, with copious volumes of splattery gore being thrown around, whenever either master or servant go into action. Yet the depiction is executed in a way which feels a bit inconsistent with its subject matter – that seems to want to be taken seriously.
The story sees Dracula and Renfield settling in New Orleans, though after a century in thrall, Renfield has had enough and is attending a support group for those in destructive relationships. This brings him into conflict with Tedward Lobo (Schwartz), scion of the crime family who run the city. Through taking on Lobo, Renfield begins to recover his own self-esteem, only for Dracula to recruit Tedward as a new sidekick, as he works towards his goal of world domination. There’s a little of Innocent Blood here, in the combination of organized crime and vampirism, though neither element here are likeable. Renfield is very much the protagonist, and that might be the problem. Hoult is vastly overshadowed by his co-stars, particularly Cage, operating in full Cage mode. It’s a throwback of 35 years to his unhinged performance in Vampire’s Kiss. Less bug eating, admittedly.
Tacked on is another subplot involving local cop Rebecca (Awkwafina), whose trying to fight departmental corruption, take down the Lobos, and mend fences with her sister, an FBI agent. I actually quite liked all of this, it just never meshed with the vampire stuff. In tone, the movie feels like it exists in the same universe as something like Day Shift, and if you told me this was a Netflix Original as well, I would have believed you. It has a high concept, decent production values and cuts a great trailer. It’s also not likely to stick in the mind. Beyond Cage, there’s a good set piece involving a police assault on the apartment where Renfield and Rebecca are hiding out. That’s about it.
On this basis, I can kinda see why this flopped badly at the box-office, with a worldwide gross of less than half its budget. It’s nice that the makers did opt for a hard approach, rather than going the frequent, more commercial PG-13 rating. Again though, this is somewhat at odds with a film which is frequently lighthearted in tone – contrast, say, the likes of Evil Dead Rise, which feels a better use of an R. The studio keep trying to reboot their horror universe, with underwhelming results. The Mummy provoked similar feelings of mere adequacy and, I see, received the same C grade. Must try harder, Universal. C
[Jim McLennan]