Chris McKay recently spoke to Empire about the upcoming horror comedy and he confirmed that he and Nicolas Cage had numerous discussions about how Dracula will be portrayed in Renfield (via SyFy Wire). “We talked a lot about silent acting,” McKay said. “Things like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, making shapes with his body. You’re gonna see allusions to Nosferatu, all the way to Anne Bancroft in The Graduate.”
But what does Mrs. Robinson have to do with a vampire comedy? “It’s going far away from what you would typically think of a Dracula movie: it’s modern, and it’s through the lens of Dracula as a sh-tty boss,” McKay explained. That explains the premise of Renfield which follows the Count’s right-hand man as he realizes he no longer wants to work for the iconic blood-sucker. “There is definitely a tongue-in-cheek premise — what if your boss was literally the boss from hell?” McKay stated. “But it’s also got action, it’s got a lot of heart, it’s not without menace…” The Graduate is one of the most widely-acclaimed films of all time and it starred Dustin Hoffman in his breakthrough role. It’s still hard to imagine how a story that involves Dracula would be connected to the movie but there is little doubt it’s going to be a fun experience to find out. Renfield also stars Nicholas Hoult, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz, Adrian Martinez, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Bess Rous, James Moses Black, Caroline Williams, and Brandon Scott Jones. It is scheduled for release on April 14, 2023.
