The vampire pop culture craze may be firmly confined to the late 2000s/early 2010s period by now, but if there’s one man capable of injecting the horror subgenre with the exact lifeblood it needs for a riveting turn, it’s without a doubt Nicolas Cage. And even though he’s teased such a capability with every passing Renfield trailer, this latest one has us more excited than ever.
After playing himself in last year’s Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, the obvious next step was to don the shoes of Count Dracula, which is precisely what Cage will be doing in Renfield. Cage’s Dracula, however, is unlike anything we’ve seen before; the overwhelming presence we’d expect from such a character is subverted by a morbid cheekiness ⏤ the perfect, most dangerous tool to construct the abusive other half of poor Renfield’s boss-employee relationship.
Indeed, this latest trailer wastes no time hinting at the type of story we’re in for, namely a romantic horror action comedy in which Nicholas Hoult’s eponymous servant discovers the beauty that comes with severing oneself from a toxic relationship. It just so happens that this particular journey also comes packed to the brim with a myriad of vampiric stunts, gore, the most tongue-in-cheek humor we may ever get out of a monster movie, and Cage himself tying it all together with a screen presence to die for (and, coincidentally, many characters probably will, too).
Renfield will release in theaters on April 14 following its premiere at the Overlook Film Festival on March 30.
