Horror Comedy ‘Renfield’ Delivers Laughs And Gore At The Overlook Film Festival

Making a horror comedy is a thankless task. The diehard horror fans will inevitably claim it’s not scary enough. Comedy lovers may find it too silly or campy. It’s hard to fully commit to two genres in a single project especially two genres as diverse as horror and comedy.

Renfield, the new horror comedy from director Chris McKay (The Lego Movie) and screenwriter Ryan Ridley (Rick and Morty) proves this genre pairing can be done successfully. The film cleverly sidesteps potential pitfalls and gives audiences a genuinely funny film with enough gore and practical make-up effects to keep the horror crowd happy.

In the film, Nicholas Hoult plays Renfield, the caretaker to Dracula, as a harried, stressed millennial who is losing his own will to live after serving the Prince of the Underworld since the days of World War I. Once an ambitious lawyer, Renfield sold his soul to befriend the rich and powerful Dracula only to find himself a servant to a vampire and an accomplice to innumerable atrocities as his master literally feeds on humanity.

As the film opens, Renfield is attending a support group for people in abusive relationships. The self-help sessions fuel his desire to stand up to his boss and demand a better life for himself. There’s just one problem: this particular boss can slaughter a roomful of vampire hunters without breaking a sweat. Renfield can’t simply submit a letter of resignation. Along the way Renfield becomes smitten with a New Orleans police officer (played by comedienne and actress Awkwafina) who is investigating a powerful Louisiana crime family whose corrupt ties may extend into her own department.

The film plays more as an action comedy than a horror comedy, and the resulting film is better for it. Comedy and horror are cinematic cousins. They are all about rhythm and timing. That said, they are difficult tones to blend. Uproarious laughter rarely segues into a jump scare that makes an audience scream. Renfield chooses to play the gore for laughs with cartoonish geysers of blood that rival Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill beheadings. The film isn’t interested in scaring audiences. It’s interested in entertaining them. And it does.

The satire in the screenplay is often broad but funny nevertheless. In our self-help, self-actualizing world, many of us feel like we’ve sold our souls to corporate overlords to pay the mortgage. In the case of Renfield, he simply sold out to the actual Overlord of the Undead. Renfield combines laugh-out-loud sight gags with clever commentary about living in a world consumed by social media, app dating and online personas and influencers.

The film’s secret weapon is no secret at all. It’s the star with top billing: Nicolas Cage as Dracula, the Prince of Darkness. Cage received criticism in the past for making too many “paycheck films” and phoning in his performances. As is often the case with such criticism, it completely ignores his excellent work in films like The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022), Pig (2021), Color Out of Space (2019), and Mandy (2018).

In Renfield, Cage’s performance is in a perfectly-modulated groove. If this is his dream role (as has often been reported), it certainly shows in the finished product. His commitment to the performance is palpable. He avoids the melodrama, hamminess and campiness that could easily take center stage and gives us a Dracula who is both menacing and hilarious depending on the demands of the screenplay. The Cageiness of some of his line readings will delight fans and reward repeat viewings.

The principal filming for Renfield took place in New Orleans, so it’s fitting that the film had its world premiere in that city at The Overlook Film Festival. The film was clearly a hit with the festival audience. The laughter was audible throughout the film’s 93-minute runtime. Screening the film at a festival two weeks before its April 14th release date indicates the production company and distributor have confidence in the project. Their confidence is well-placed. Renfield deserves to be a hit. We’ll see if the box office numbers agree.