{"id":3822,"date":"2024-04-23T15:00:35","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T21:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=3822"},"modified":"2024-03-22T21:32:47","modified_gmt":"2024-03-23T03:32:47","slug":"movie-renfield-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/23\/movie-renfield-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Renfield (2023)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/b\/b1\/Poster_Renfield.jpg\" alt=\"Renfield\" width=\"251\" height=\"397\" \/>Renfield<br \/><\/u><\/strong>Year: 2023<br \/>Rating: R<br \/>Length: 93 minutes \/ 1.55 hours<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, a movie comes along that has a fun concept and delivers on it. <em>Renfield<\/em> (2023) asks, \u201cWhat if Dracula\u2019s servant realizes his boss is toxic?\u201d With all the modern progress that\u2019s been made in worker\u2019s rights, this ridiculous combination is just hilarious enough to work. There\u2019s a lot of lore surrounding Dracula, so a story that\u2019s set in the present time plays the contrasts for laughs. That this movie is even canonically connected to <em>Dracula<\/em> (1931) makes it feel like a heartfelt sequel to its almost 100-year-old predecessor.<\/p>\n<p>The two actors who make this movie work are none other than Nicholas Cage (Dracula) and Nicholas Hoult (Renfield). Cage basically (and almost literally) gnaws on the scenery as he\u2019s allowed to ham it up as the iconic monster. Hoult has shown he has great acting talent in recent movies like <a href=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/19\/movie-the-favourite-2018\/\"><em>The Favourite<\/em><\/a> (2018) and <a href=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/09\/movie-the-menu-2022\/\"><em>The Menu<\/em><\/a> (2022). <em>Renfield<\/em> shows he knows how to play a straight role in such a way that makes Renfield\u2019s genuine nature a funny character arc of growing independence. There are other standard comedy actors here as well, including Ben Schwartz and Awkwafina, but they\u2019re nothing to write home about.<\/p>\n<p>As an R-rated Dracula movie, <em>Renfield<\/em> leans heavily into the violence that comes with vampires and vampire-powered individuals. This gore might be over the top at times, but I think the campy nature of it leans into the comedy (like a 80s action flick). Even if the plot feels a little thin, it at least delivers on its premise of Dracula\u2019s familiar realizing his employer is narcissistic and toxic to him as an individual. As long as you\u2019re looking for a fun film to turn your mind off to, then this certainly fits the bill.<\/p>\n<p>A modern Dracula take crossed with workers\u2019 talk therapy, I give <em>Renfield<\/em> 4.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/bmw-the-critic\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"820\" height=\"312\" src=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2.jpg 820w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-300x114.jpg 300w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-768x292.jpg 768w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BMW-the-Critic-v2-640x244.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RenfieldYear: 2023Rating: RLength: 93 minutes \/ 1.55 hours Sometimes, a movie comes along that has a fun concept and delivers on it. Renfield (2023) asks, \u201cWhat if Dracula\u2019s servant realizes his boss is toxic?\u201d With all the modern progress that\u2019s been made in worker\u2019s rights, this ridiculous combination is just hilarious enough to work. There\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2],"tags":[3407,629,104,1328,13,482,1667,3677,8,3678],"class_list":["post-3822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-0-stars","category-movie","tag-3407","tag-campy","tag-comedy","tag-dracula","tag-movie","tag-nicholas-cage","tag-nicholas-hoult","tag-renfield","tag-review","tag-toxic-boss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3822"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3832,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3822\/revisions\/3832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}