Renfield

After an encounter with Vampire Hunters an injured Count Dracula (Nic Cage) is convalescing in New Orleans. Hiding in an abandoned hospital he relies on his familiar Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) to bring him victims to feast upon and regain his full power.

Renfield tires of being in thrall to the vampire and has been cruising support groups looking for victims who 'deserve' to be eaten on account of being neglectful or abusive partners of the attendees.

While there he begins to take in the self-help message and thinks he can change.

CW: massively OTT bloody violence

This strangely pitched Nic Cage vehicle is quite good fun but inconsistent. We get semi-superheroic feats from Renfield as he tries to woo Police Officer Quincy (Awkwafina) with limbs getting torn off, people getting impaled on furniture and so on.

Every now and then Cage turns up as a gurning Goth version of The Count and there's some thing going on with an organised crime family failson.

It's both VERY simple and messy at the same time.

Thankfully the comedy mostly works and I chuckled a fair bit.

They do try to make it about abusive imbalanced co-pendent relationships in places but then clearly realise that's not going to sit well with the comedy so another gag or gore fountain happens.

Mostly though they've tried to do something a little different and it partially succeeds for which they should be applauded, 7/10.