Renfield **** (2023, Nicolas Cage, Nicholas Hoult, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Brandon Scott Jones, Adrian Martinez) – Classic Movie Review 13,937

Nicolas Cage is Dracula and Nicholas Hoult is his long-suffering servant in the ludicrously entertaining, 2023 American action comedy horror film Renfield.

Producer / director Chris McKay’s 2023 American action comedy horror film Renfield is ludicrously entertaining, a hoot from start to finish, with Nicolas Cage on lip-smacking, blood-sucking overdrive as Dracula, and Nicholas Hoult a sweet delight as his long-suffering servant Renfield. It hit all three targets of action, comedy and horror bull’s eye.

McKay describes the film as a ‘quasi-sequel’ to Universal’s 1931 Dracula, with the same characters 90 years on.  McKay was hired because his pitch combined the kind of mix of humour and action that Universal were looking for. All good then, so far?

Yet it ended up with some hostile reviews and was a box-office bomb, grossing $26.9 million against a $65 million budget. But the film is a total blast, a special joy, a treat for all old horror movies fans with a sense of humour. There is more than enough going on in terms of gags and action to fill the fast moving 93 minutes. Cage and Hoult give it their all, and a little bit more. Too much? No, not here.

What sucks is that, because of its box-office failure, we’re not going see the further adventures of the Cage/ Hoult dynamic duo. Perhaps Hoult could play Batman and Cage the Joker.

After the failure of The Mummy (2017), Robert Kirkman pitched to Universal Pictures a comedic reimagining of Dracula. Chris McKay picked up the project, working with a script by Ryan Ridley based on Kirkman’s pitch story. Alas, it was another failure for Universal Pictures.

Filming began in New Orleans on February 3, 2022, with Mitchell Amundsen as cinematographer, and wrapped on April 14, 2022.

The film’s black-and-white opening scenes recreate the events of Dracula (1931), with Nicolas Cage and Nicholas Hoult inserted in place of Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye.

Renfield had its world premiere at the Overlook Film Festival on March 30, 2023 and was released in US cinemas by Universal Pictures on April 14, 2023.

© Derek Winnert 2026 – Classic Movie Review 13,937

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