Renfield

I thought the trailer for Renfield looked like a lot of fun so I spontaneously decided to see it yesterday afternoon.  It is definitely enjoyable but there are a lot of flaws that keep it from being great.  Count Dracula (Nicolas Cage), along with his familiar R.M. Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), relocates to New Orleans so that he can recuperate from a close call with some vampire hunters.  When Renfield is out searching for victims for Dracula to feed on, he runs afoul of the Lobo crime family, led by Bellafrancesca Lobo (Shohreh Aghdashloo) and her ne'er-do-well son Teddy (Ben Schwartz), and comes in contact with Rebecca Quincy, a police officer with a grudge against the Lobos.  Renfield decides to help Rebecca with her investigation and tries to free himself from Dracula's clutches with the help of a support group but mayhem ensues when the Lobos join forces with Dracula!  Cage is completely unhinged, in the best possible way, as Dracula and seems to be channeling the ghost of Bela Lugosi!  He is the best part of the movie and I wish that he was in it more!  I also enjoyed Hoult as an awkward and sniveling fop, especially whenever he interacts with Cage's Dracula.  The over the top action set pieces are incredibly gory, with decapitations and amputations that spew more blood than could possibly be found in a human body, but they are really campy and made me laugh out loud several times.  The references to vampire mythology, such as needing to be invited in and an aversion to sunlight, are also highly amusing.  However, my biggest problem is the inconsistent tone because this could have been so much better if it had fully committed to the comedy.  Instead, there is an unnecessarily dramatic subplot about a corrupt police force in league with the crime family that killed Quincy's father, himself a police officer, and her attempts to get justice for him.  Awkwafina's Quincy is, essentially, the straight man which is such a waste because she is a great comedic actress.  Awkwafina and Hoult have very little chemistry and their scenes together are surprisingly bland.  This is entertaining but it doesn't know what kind of movie it wants to be so a lot of its potential is squandered.  I would recommend waiting to watch this when it is available to stream.