Garlic bulbs at the ready for Chris McKay’s horror-comedy: a cynical side-hustle of a picture, come to drain the extremities of the Bram Stoker estate and install a lowly pretender as king. As embodied by Nicholas Hoult, foppish Renfield wouldn’t look out of place in a genteel period romance. Instead, he’s spent the past century as Dracula’s grotesque familiar, gobbling insects for breakfast and sourcing new meat for his master. “A busload of cheerleaders,” demands the count at one point, as though he’s perusing the menu at his favourite bistro.
Every generation, perhaps, gets the monster movie it deserves. This one practically bounces off the analyst’s couch, spouting the language of trauma, recovery and self-empowerment. Attending a support group, Renfield learns that he’s in a “codependent relationship” with a toxic narcissist and duly tries to strike out on his own, fighting big-city crime alongside Awkwafina’s lone honest cop. This, one assumes, is his big redemption arc, although in practice it chiefly involves indiscriminate comic-book slaughter. Limbs are lopped off. Heads explode like bombs. McKay gives us gallons of blood. Not much of it is fresh.
