Everyone’s dealt with a toxic employer at least once in their working life, but imagine how much worse it would be if that demanding boss was, well, Dracula? That’s the elevator pitch for new horror comedy Renfield, which is hitting cinemas on May 25.
Renfield is, of course, Dracula’s insane servant in the original novel, and has appeared in countless screen iterations in the century since the King of the Vampires first hit celluloid. Here he’s played with put-upon charm by Nicholas Hoult. Set in modern day New Orleans, that most vampiric of American cities, Renfield sees the hapless title character struggling to get out from under his master’s control, having grown tired of the old leech’s increasingly deranged demands.
The kicker is, of course, that Renfield is played by Nicolas freakin’ Cage, taking his first turn as a vampire since the 1988 cult classic, Vampire’s Kiss. Let’s just sit with that for a moment.
As we can see from the trailer, our boy Renfield at times comes across like a kind of bug-powered superhero, carving his way through mobs of bad guys and managing to impress Awkwafina’s cop along the way. Of course, the path to true love never runs straight, especially when there’s a completely OTT bloodsucking Nic Cage in the way.
This one comes to us courtesy of director Chris McKay (The LEGO Batman Movie), who has some experience with comedies featuring bat-themed characters, working from an original idea by The Walking Dead’s Robert Kirkman. It’s also a Universal picture, which carries some weight; the studio has been struggling to figure out what to do with all their old monster properties, and since The Mummy failed to launch their mooted Dark Universe, perhaps a tongue-in-cheek take on the undead Transylvanian count will prove more successful. Still, Nic Cage as Dracula—that alone is worth a ticket.
