One of the unfortunate realities that we all have to face when it comes to cinema is that some of the most ambitious ideas tend to be wasted on mediocre talents, or manifest in a way that is disappointing to say the least. One of the most recent examples of an exceptional concept not reaching its full potential comes in the form of Renfield, in which director Chris McKay (who is most certainly competent, with work like The LEGO Batman Movie and Robot Chicken being wildly entertaining and certainly resonant on a deeper level) provides a platform to the character of Robert Montague Renfield, the insect-eating servant to Count Dracula. What appeared to be a promising idea, centred on a relatively minor but still very memorable character, turned out to be middling at best, with all of its strongest ideas being put to the wayside in favour of a formulaic, overly conventional addition to a growing canon of high-concept comedy horrors that fail to actually do anything meaningful. It is difficult to imagine Renfield will hold any cultural cache, since it passes by without any real fanfare or genuine interest, being 90 minutes of conventional storytelling interspersed with graphic gore and a strange sense of humour that would be more appropriate if the film wasn’t so intent on satisfying studio-imposed boundaries, which don’t necessarily have much artistic resonance outside of satiating market research. This was extremely clear in this film, which didn’t care enough about the material to develop the ideas beyond a pale, unnerving and oddly-paced attempt at horror and comedy, which certainly don’t work together as well in this instance as those involved in the creation of this film may tend to imagine. Renfield is a classic example of strong ideas not being enough to sustain an entire film, not due to the weakness of the premise, but the inability of those involved to honour a good concept.

In recent years, there have been attempts to revive the B-movie, and Universal has remained at the forefront of these efforts – this year alone, we have had Cocaine Bear and M3GAN, which are films that may not be perfect, but take bold swings and were justly awarded for it, even if only through earning the title of “future camp classic” (the validity of such an assessment being entirely up to interpretation), which is exactly what they were aiming to achieve, commercially and financially. Renfield is one of the first missteps from this batch of intentionally subversive horror films – and considering Universal mastered the art of the monster film in the 1930s, of which Dracula was one of their landmark achievements, it feels doubly disappointing that they failed to make the same impact, especially since Renfield had by far the easiest concept to develop into something special. Whoever is at fault for the film not being nearly as strong as it could have been is entirely up to the individual viewer’s interpretation, since there is something unsteady about both the screenplay and the direction that could place the blame on either McKay (who has enough experience to not make something that looks and feels like it was directed by an amateur), or screenwriter Ryan Ridley, who may have needed to re-evaluate the art of taking a classic work and filtering it through a modern lens, which may seem like an appealing idea at the start, but steadily declines as we start to realize there is something far more sinister about this film, not in terms of the maniacal villain, but rather its inability to string together two coherent thoughts for long enough to actually make an impact. Interestingly, Universal has recently been trying to reignite its heyday by the creation of its “Monster Universe”, and yet they have faltered – The Mummy was a failure, and The Invisible Man was well-received but didn’t leave much room for future development. Renfield joins the growing list of misguided attempts to recapture the golden age of monster-based horror, which is truly disappointing for all of us who were eagerly anticipating a return to this style of entertaining, delightfully strange filmmaking.

Regardless of which area one feels is more disappointing than the other, the reality is that every aspect of Renfield fails to live up to the impossibly high standards that come when we are taking a classic work and looking at it from a modern perspective. This immediately begs the question: what was the point of modernizing this story? Not only does it take bold liberties with Bram Stoker’s original novel (which was relatively conclusive in the titular character’s fate), it doesn’t do so with any sense of logic – and you have truly fumbled an easy task when a major criticism is that your work is too implausible to actually be worth the viewer’s time. This is not the first comedic take on the Dracula character – we have films like Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck and Mel Brooks’ poorly-received but still very entertaining Dracula: Dead and Loving It, which are well-crafted and understand the essence of Stoker’s work, and resist the temptation to set it in modern times, which is a big part of why they succeed, since the blend of gothic architecture and urbane comedy makes for a very impactful storyline, and a wildly entertaining series of moments that are both funny and insightful, which is a key component in why they all work so extraordinarily well. The belief being that audiences don’t want to see films set in the past is one of the many reasons we aren’t getting these grandiose, exciting works any longer, and it becomes less a matter of embracing the absurdity of the past, and more about shoehorning classic tales into a contemporary setting. Renfield gains absolutely nothing through a modern lens, and if anything the contemporary setting removes the mystique and charm, and it becomes yet another wacky comedy without any depth, especially since the central conflict is overwrought, unfunny and frankly boring, which is never anything that should be written about a film centred on one of the greatest characters in the history of literature.

Perhaps the only participants that can’t be blamed for Renfield being such a disappointment are the actors, since they did their absolute best with the material, but unfortunately had the burden of having the carry this film entirely on their own, since McKay wasn’t given them too much guidance in how to play these roles. Nicholas Hoult is an extremely talented actor, and I will always advocate for him to receive more lead roles, since he is one of the most fascinating young performers we have working together. He is given the role of Renfield, and he does moderately well – it isn’t anything we haven’t seen from him in the past in terms of being able to oscillate between charismatic and deeply strange, but he is still very strong and plays the role with a lot of intensity, while never taking himself too seriously, which is one of the few positive aspects of the film. The same can be said for Awkwafina, who is also quite good, despite the ideal version of this story entirely excising her character (since her storyline is intrinsically tied to the modernizing of the plot, which should never have been a factor), and she puts in the effort to still deliver a solid comedic performance without relying on the quirks for which she has been both celebrated and criticized for years. Shohreh Aghdashloo, one of our finest working actors, is a fantastic but underused villain, and the normally shrill and excessive Ben Schwartz actually turns in a decent performance as her unstable son. However, we can’t pretend that the entire reason Renfield received any attention was for anything other than Nicolas Cage playing Count Dracula – he is exceptional in this film, and manages to balance the humour and horror extremely well, which makes us yearn for the possibility of seeing him give this exact performance in a far better film. He is hilarious and terrifying, and he proves that he is always willing to give everything he can to bringing a character to life. He deserved much better than this film, and had Renfield been substantially improved, there is very little doubt that he would have been seen as one of the defining portrayals of the character, which will unfortunately not be the case due to the mediocre nature of this film.

Renfield is a bundle of missed opportunities, which is perhaps the most appropriate (and honestly most generous) assessment we can give to this film. The reason for its outright failure is not easy to discern, since it is essentially the work of so many components not being outright awful, but not functioning just enough to make them ineffectual and tacky. The filmmaking is decent – it is well-paced (being a neat 90 minutes, which is at least a small mercy that shows that McKay was at least somewhat adherent to the principle of Universal horror movies rarely being very long), and the special effects are excellent – but these only mean something if the concept is good, or the writing is strong, unfortunately neither being the case here. It is quite awkward, since the shifting tone means that this is not a film that knows exactly what it wants to be, and the lack of attention to detail is quite unnerving. It is predictable, with every bit of foreshadowing being awfully obvious and hackneyed, and the storytelling doesn’t give us much to go on either, with the majority of this film being quite misguided in how it handles a promising concept. As a whole, Renfield isn’t a travesty, and it manages to at least be well-made enough to hold our attention. Yet, based on what it was trying to achieve, and what it actually accomplishes, it is impossible to view this as anything particularly worthwhile, with its premise being ruined by the decision to make a modern version of a classic tale (which has always flourished when it remained in its original setting), without actually putting in the work outside of the one-line concept of bringing Count Dracula into present-day New York and watching him navigate the pratfalls of modern life, as seen through the eyes of his servant, which is promising, but not enough to sustain an entire film. Overall, Renfield is a film that could have been much better with more work, but ultimately ended up being deeply mediocre, which is not something that any of us expected, and everyone involved deserved so much better than this listless, mediocre attempt at a future horror comedy classic.