Few characters manage the passage of time quite like Dracula. From the character’s iconic beginnings as a Universal Studios monster to more recent attempts to craft a shared universe, Dracula adaptations often offer the clearest reflection of both the film industry and broader societal trends. “Dracula and vampire movies have run the gamut of metaphors,” notes Chris McKay, director of “Renfield,” a horror-comedy set in the current day. For this particular metaphor, the two iconic horror characters are caught in an abusive relationship, one that speaks to a decade of bad Hollywood behavior and toxic workplaces.
It may not be appropriate to describe “Renfield” as a retcon of “Dracula” history, even as the film recreates moments from Todd Browning’s film with its contemporary cast. It sure as hell is a direct sequel, though. The film finds both Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) and Dracula (Nicolas Cage) in modern-day New Orleans, where the latter is recovering after the most recent attempt on his life. Having accidentally stumbled into a support group for people in abusive relationships, Renfield tries his best to set firm boundaries between himself and his undead benefactor, only to have his entire world collapse when Dracula takes the wrong lesson from his self-help books and decides to destroy the world.
For fans of Universal Monsters, the 1930s were a golden era of horror performances. Actors like Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff would become synonymous with the genre for decades to come, and creatures like Dracula and Frankenstein would form a pantheon of movie monsters that remains beloved to this day. But if you watch “Dracula” again now, what stands out is not the arch performance of Lugosi but the supporting performance by Dwight Frye, who captures the tragic arc of Renfield with shockingly contemporary stylizations as a performer. Frye’s performance would inform Hoult’s work with the character, up to and including the former’s signature laughter and smile.
“We just wanted to pay homage to this guy,” McKay notes. “It is a really great performance.” Frye’s performance took on added significance given the dearth of great Renfield interpretations on screen. While McKay is quick to give credit to actors like Tom Waits and Peter MacNicol in their respective “Dracula” adaptations, neither quite matched the tone that the filmmaker was going for. They needed Dracula to be the supporting character in Renfield’s story, not the other way around. “He’s the arc of that movie,” the director adds. “He feels bad for what he’s done, and you track that. He stands up to Dracula by the end.”
In the original “Dracula,” Frye also serves as an effective hype man for Lugosi, whose actual tactics as Count Dracula are somewhat muted. For “Renfield” to play well with modern horror audiences, finding a balance between both tones was critical. “I wanted it to have a ‘Creepshow’ vibe, where it’s got garish colors and saturated colors,” McKay explains. This is on display during our introduction to Dracula’s lair in New Orleans, which features a lavish blood bag throne room and peeling makeup that would make Clive Barker proud. McKay speaks to the importance of the practical elements – costumes, set design, and makeup – in creating an atmosphere that, “if you were to turn the sound off on a trailer, you might mistake it for a horror movie.”
But McKay also believes that the toxic nature of the relationship gives “Renfield” an element of real-world horror that will resonate with audiences. The director describes his Dracula as a “bad boyfriend” or a “bad boss,” the kind of villain instantly relatable to anyone who has ever suffered through an unhealthy relationship. And since Renfield is himself complicit in the deaths he has helped cause, McKay hopes that his film will follow in the footsteps of some of the great horror filmmakers. “Whether it’s the George Romeros and John Carpenters and David Cronenbergs and people from the past, or the Ari Asters, they really make you flip flop between who’s truly the most horrific person in the story.”
Whether you think Renfield is man or monster, McKay has found the right actor for the role. Hollywood has every intention of turning Hoult into a leading man, but the actor seems doggedly determined to seek out strange roles over more conventional heroic. In that way, “Renfield” serves as a kind of metatextual passing of the torch between Cage and his young costar. “On one of the first meetings, Cage said something like, ‘If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing,” McKay recalls. “And Hoult really took that to heart.”
Speaking of the metatextual, you can hardly talk about “Renfield” without talking about Cage himself. As with any performance, Cage’s role as Dracula works on two levels. There is the performance within the context of the film, which is frightening, exhilarating, and wonderfully calibrated against Hoult’s more reserved Renfield. But there is also the metatextual nature of Cage’s performance, a series of character moments that will undoubtedly end up in YouTube compilations and reaction .gifs for years to come. When asked if the metatextual nature of Cage as a performer is something filmmakers have to consider, McKay just laughs.
“I’m sure that’s why the marketing department was a million percent behind casting Cage in this movie, because they knew on some level it’s gonna be a meme,” he jokes. But much like any film, “Renfield” began with the process of building an impactful relationship between two actors on screen. To create a believable villain – even one as iconic as Dracula – McKay first asked Cage to strip his performance down to its essential parts. “Take all the supernatural aspects of it out,” he recalls asking his cast. “What is it if it was a black box theater movie about codependency or a toxic relationship?”
From there, McKay describes the creation of Dracula as a kind of “remix” of ideas to create something fresh. Cage brought in concepts from silent film acting – always a major inspiration for the actor – and mannerisms picked up from icons like Max Schreck, who played Count Orlok in the original “Nosferatu.” But one of the surprising inspirations was a childhood cobra. “He was always modeling it after this cobra that he had seen, the way it hunted its prey,” McKay explains. “He wanted to move like that. And that’s what the stunt guys embraced as we were building his stunt choreography.”
And while McKay recognizes that his movie – like all vampire movies – may one day be used as a measuring stick for contemporary Hollywood, he hopes that the focus will remain on the types of relationships explored in the film. In an industry dominated by abusive personalities, “Renfield” serves as a small reminder that the abusive people in your life do not hold all the cards. “They don’t need to live rent free in your head,” he concludes. “It’s not them. You’re in charge of that. And you can evict them if you want to.”
“Renfield” opens in theaters everywhere on April 14 via Universal Pictures.
