Nicholas Cage has Nicholas Rage.

I took way too long to finally watch Renfield for a guy who calls himself an alleged Nicholas Cage fan, especially considering the movie came out on Amazon Prime for free back in like…May. That alleged was added by me, for the record. The fourth movie by Chris McKay, Renfield is yet another movie in the line of movies that are in fact movies.

Renfield stars Nicholas Holt as Renfield, the character we all know from the 1897 book Dracula based on the 1931 film starring Bela Lugosi. How is that possible? Dracula magic. The film takes place in modern day times as Renfield has moved to the United States in order to help in the recovery of Dracula (Nicholas Cage) after his last hurrah went sideways. See it’s in Dracula’s blood (ha ha) to take things too far and get horribly injured only for Renfield to nurse him back to health.

Also in the film is Awkwafina who plays Rebecca, a traffic cop trying to prove herself and bring down the Lobo crime family along with her sister Kate (Camille Chen). This may be an unpopular opinion but I actually like Awkwafina and her appearance in movies. She’s like…the female version of Charles Bronson. Not fantastic acting skills, but she feels natural enough as a real person that it tends to bring out the “I’m obviously an actor” in the rest of the characters around her. Also she has that “girl next door” attraction, and while I haven’t looked into her diet at all because that’d be creepy, she strikes me as the type who wouldn’t say no to sharing a tasty rotisserie chicken.

There’s really only one person in this film who could top Nicholas Cage in Nicholas Cage-ing, and that’s Ben Schwartz who plays Tedward Lobo, the mob boss son of Bellafrancesca (Shohreh Aghdashloo). Ben’s running thing is having ridiculous names in many of his appearances like Pud, Jimothy, Carrot Slat, Cherry Dude, and more. He’s also adorable, and looks like an overexcited child shooting guns while smiling his big goofy smile. I had no idea Ben Schwartz was in this film because he’s not in the trailer and I don’t read reviews or look at IMDB casting before watching films. Damn was I happy to see him show up.

You may recognize Shohreh Aghdashloo as she recently showed up in Assassin’s Creed Mirage as Roshan. What timing, I’m working on a video for that. There’s a bunch of other characters but who cares.

Renfield is a big analogy about abusive relationships, and by analogy I mean literally about abusive relationships down to the support group, the slogans, the books, and the gallons of blood. Renfield has so much blood Quentin Tarantino himself might ask them to tone it down. Let it be known, this is a comedy movie foremost and a horror movie never. Nicholas Cage plays exactly the role you would expect from Nicholas Cage as Dracula, hamming it up like a master who is both a talented artist and absolutely insane. The effects they use on his makeup are fantastic and really gross in the beginning of the movie.

Other than Dracula himself the blood effects are so over the top that they swing around and become good again. Once you find yourself expecting the film to be the type where characters are ripping off limbs and then impaling other people with them, you lower your expectations and enjoy the ride. There’s tons of brutal dismemberment, gore, blood spraying everywhere, characters getting ripped apart, screaming, crying, and bug eating. Lots and lots of bug eating.

The only thing I didn’t really care for was the weird almost-romantic subplot between Renfield and Rebecca. Shoulda gone somewhere or at least been acknowledged. Either way this is a fine Prime Video movie to watch and it’s about an hour and a half.

Rating: B+