Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) has been Count Dracula’s (Nicolas Cage) familiar for nearly one hundred years and has just come to realise that he is in a toxic co-dependant relationship. He promptly joins a self help group and finds himself working alongside incorruptible cop Rebecca Quincy (Awkwafina)  who is trying to jail the top crime family in New Orleans. 

Renfield is a bizarre concoction of comedy and horror that pays tribute to what has gone before whilst focusing on a plot that is very much of our current era. What is great though is that it almost all works brilliantly. 

The film places a montage of sequences from the 1931 Dracula which featured Bella Lugosi and Dwight Frye as Dracula and Renfield as an explanation of who they are and what their history is. Superimposing Hoult and Cage’s images over Lugosi and Frye making this a direct sequel to that film. This also serves to be one of the most delightful sequences in the movie. Nicolas Cage of course has an absolute whale of a time playing Dracula and doing his version of Lugosi’s legendary performance. Whilst some of his line deliveries almost verge on Mike Myers Austin Powers he manages to be elaborately over the top, incredibly funny and slightly scary. It seems unimaginable that anyone other than Cage could play this role. 

Nicholas Hoult on the other hand sells both the insipid familiar with no backbone and a kickass super hero when powered up via eating bugs that give him Dracula’s powers. When he is in the support group run by an hilarious Brandon Scott Jones he is comedy gold. The whole theme of toxic relationships of course being very much of an era unfamiliar to the 1931 film these characters originate from. Whilst alongside Awkwafina, who is playing a Serpico of sorts he builds a sweet burgeoning romance. 

Elsewhere the film also leans on Ben Schwartz to play the kind of narcissistic idiot he is famous for as the crime family’s number one son and heir. You may have seen him do this schtick before in Parks and Recreation but he is a lot of fun as always. 

Finally on top of all of that, this is a film based on an original idea from The Walking Dead’s Robert Kirkman. Which means gore and dismemberment is par for the course. Although it is very much played for laughs. It is of course only fair to mention the final screenplay is from Ryan Ridley who has credits on comedies such as Community and Rick & Morty which will account for its humour. 

If I were to be super picky I would draw attention to some of the editing feeling a little choppy. There are scenes that feel as though they have been shortened significantly. But the result is a very speedy 93 minute film where you are never too far from a laugh or a blood geyser. 

Director Chris McKay has done a wonderful job of pulling all of these facets together to make a super fun film. One that is much closer in quality to his first feature; The Lego Batman Movie, than his second; The Tomorrow War.