I thought I would start a series called “Movies with my girlfriend” where I talk about movies I’ve watched with my girlfriend. This time we’re going to be talking about Renfield, a film directed by Chris McKay. I’ve never seen any movies by this director, but I liked the lead actor, Nicholas Hoult, and apparently this director also directed the Lego Batman Movie, which is cool. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s about a man named Robert Montague Renfield (Hoult), who is the personal assistant and thrall of Dracula, played by Nicolas Cage.

Quinta (my girlfriend) and I decided to see this movie on a whim, after dinner and drinks on a Friday evening. We had talked about seeing it before, after seeing trailers. The main draw, for myself, was Nicolas Cage portraying Count Dracula. To me, this seemed like a perfect role for him, and he did not disappoint. Quinta is not a big fan of Nicolas Cage, but rather likes Nicholas Hoult, which is what drew her to the movie.

The film itself is a blend of comedy and horror, all wrapped around an interesting (though somewhat heavyhanded) allegory for codependency, which is something I didn’t expect to work as well as it did. The humor reminded me of Sam Raimi (mostly Army of Darkness), especially when it came to Dracula himself. There was a lot of comedic gore, and there weren’t any points in which I thought the movie was taking itself too seriously, at least in terms of the actual on-screen content. In this way it shined, as most of the physical comedy and on-screen gags elicited audible laughter from myself and Quinta.

The film felt much like a really good student film. I hope that doesn’t sound like an insult, it isn’t, but it definitely didn’t feel like “high cinema,” whatever that is. One of my favorite films, Days to Daze is a student film, and its message/allegory is economical, and to the point, much like this film. Quinta was well entertained, and as someone who typically dislikes comedies as a genre, that is a high bar to pass. Personally I think she just has a particular brand of humor that doesn’t come out much, but that’s just me.

Overall I give Renfield an 7/10 with 1 being Pirates of the Caribbean 5 and 10 being Blade Runner 2049 (that’s not a scale of quality just a scale between these two movies on the Infinite Venn Diagram). I don’t know what Quinta gave it but I think she liked it.