Renfield
Universal Pictures | Release Date: April 14, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 49 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
30
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
We Got This CoveredAbhishek SharmaApr 17, 2023
A mixed bag of elements, Renfield resonates with eclectic vibes. There was a potential for a huge hit here, but there’s just occasional intrigue and leisure that relaxes the audience to a considerable extent without coming close to greatness. Read full review
60
Film ThreatAlan NgApr 14, 2023
Renfield is a good movie that squanders its potential to be great. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeApr 14, 2023
Mid-grade comedy Drac at best. Diverting for all that. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalAmy NicholsonApr 14, 2023
Mr. McKay’s comedy is at its best when his tone is big, ridiculous and cheerfully subversive. Read full review
60
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyApr 13, 2023
It’s only regrettable that the film itself didn’t heed one of cinema’s most important lessons – when you put Nicolas Cage in a movie, it’s guaranteed no one will care about anything other than Nicolas Cage. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshApr 13, 2023
The stylish Renfield is a bit of frothy fun. It may be too flip for some, but flippancy isn’t the issue — it’s the flimsiness. Hoult and Cage sell the toxic odd-couple dynamic well, but a sturdier story is required to fully support their performances, especially Cage’s operatic Dracula, who delights in terrorizing his foppish familiar. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzApr 12, 2023
The actors are having fun here and, for a while, so will the audience. But the payoff just isn’t there. It’s not-a-stake-through-the-heart disappointment, but the only eternal life Renfield will enjoy is in late-night channel surfing. Read full review
60
The GuardianEllen E JonesApr 12, 2023
As you’d expect from a movie originated by Robert Kirkman of The Walking Dead zombie franchise, Renfield is also resplendent in gore. Dracula’s grotesque visage – decaying in reverse as he gathers strength – is a prosthetics triumph. Read full review
59
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzApr 13, 2023
The trouble with Renfield, though, is the fact that it’s called Renfield and not Dracula. Snivelling when not stiff, the title character is a bore, as is Hoult’s shoulder-shrug of a performance. Read full review
55
ABC NewsPeter TraversApr 14, 2023
Before this frightfest chokes on its own relentlessly repetitive blood-splatter, Nicolas Cage proves fiercely funny as a modern-age Dracula whose malignant narcissism sends his errand boy Renfield (a soulful Nicholas Hoult) into therapy for co-dependency. Read full review
55
CNNBrian LowryApr 13, 2023
What’s billed as a horror-comedy thus can’t entirely decide where it wishes to land on that spectrum, in a movie that benefits from letting Cage cut loose without fully capitalizing upon his full-throated performance. Read full review
50
The Film StageJohn FinkApr 20, 2023
Caught between a horror action flick that delivers gallons of splatter and a well-cast high-concept comedy, both seemed pushed aside for mediocre thrills and a few chuckles. Read full review
50
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaApr 18, 2023
I found myself annoyed that such a fresh new take on Dracula, and from Nic Cage no less, is wasted on such a lousy movie. Nicolas Cage's Dracula deserves a better movie, and so do we. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliApr 17, 2023
Cage’s performance provides the glue for an uneven film. Read full review
50
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiApr 17, 2023
Renfield is goofy, with fantastic action sequences and a few comedic beats that land, but it could have also been so much more. Read full review
50
Little White LiesHannah StrongApr 14, 2023
What could have been a charming odd couple film about a supernatural break-up is tonally mismatched, not quite a comedy, not quite a horror, not quite a crime caper, not quite a romance. Read full review
50
The New YorkerRichard BrodyApr 14, 2023
It’s bouncy, clever, amiable, and idiosyncratic, but its virtues seem inseparable from its over-all inertness and triviality. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsApr 14, 2023
Mainly, Cage keeps finding the damnedest ways to topspin his line readings so that you never know where a sentence is going. May the next outing with Renfield and Dracula, should the public and Universal decree it, be a little funnier and little less too much. Read full review
50
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiApr 13, 2023
Cage is amusing though, and exemplifies the old stage wisdom “if you’re having fun, they’re having fun.” However, that’s the biggest problem for Renfield: Whenever Cage leaves the frame, which is often, we immediately stop having fun — as if Dracula commanded us to. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayApr 12, 2023
Cheesy, strident, ridiculous and sometimes disarmingly, stupidly funny, Renfield doesn’t go for the jugular as much as give it a playful and quickly forgotten love bite. Read full review
50
USA TodayBrian TruittApr 12, 2023
There’s plenty to sink your teeth into when Cage is this superbly outrageous and manically inspired while Hoult, who’s got great comedic timing, is just as batty in his own way. Everything else about Renfield needs to go back in the coffin. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleBob StraussApr 12, 2023
This sometimes clever, outrageously gory and slickly violent horror comedy is more “John Wick” than Tod Browning, and that’s just the tip of its tonal confusion. Read full review
50
ObserverDylan RothApr 12, 2023
Given the necessity of finding some new angle on source material that’s been adapted for the big screen roughly a hundred times, a sideways look at what it’s like to work for Dracula isn’t the worst idea. But it’s not the most original take, either, and Renfield is basically (un)dead on arrival. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanApr 11, 2023
Cage’s Dracula, sipping blood out of a martini glass, is so quick, so in thrall to his legend, that he’ll slice you with sarcasm. It’s a witty and luscious performance, unhinged but never out of control, and it deserved a movie that could serve as a pedestal for the actor’s seasoned flamboyance. Read full review
42
IndieWireKate ErblandApr 12, 2023
It’s all an approximation of fun, mirth in tiny portions, amusement of the thinnest variety. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreApr 17, 2023
Hoult, playing a pallid, anxious, disconcertingly dreamy Renfield, and Cage, fully Cageing it up as the count, manage to be compelling even when vamping (sorry) with all their might to make this material work. Read full review
40
The Observer (UK)Xan BrooksApr 15, 2023
Your standard vampire film would have put Cage centre stage. Renfield, God help it, elects to bury the lede and drive a stake through his heart. Read full review
40
BBCCaryn JamesApr 14, 2023
Renfield is worth watching for Cage, Hoult and Awkwafina's entertaining performances, and not much more. Read full review
40
The Daily BeastNick SchagerApr 13, 2023
[Cage] is the prince of pretentious darkness, and the saving grace of this otherwise slapdash variation on the Bram Stoker legend. Read full review
40
Paste MagazineBrianna ZiglerApr 13, 2023
It’s not willing to be goofy and gonzo enough for the inanity of its concept, not cool enough for the slick fight scenes it wants to impress you with, and not worthy enough of Cage as Dracula (the real star of this show). Read full review
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