Renfield sucks all the fun out of What We Do in the Shadows’ formula

polygon.com:

“I am a codependent.” This line is thrown out emphatically and frequently, coming in voice-over and from multiple characters, throughout Chris McKay’s ineffectual, irony-poisoned vampire splatter comedy Renfield. The confessional is part of the movie’s throughline about people recognizing and taking ownership of the monsters running their lives, but it ends up as a handy reminder of the flavorless pop culture gruel that has dominated the release schedule in recent years. When it comes to Hollywood, we’re all codependents. For every thoughtfully crafted action film, there is a pair of empty superhero outings. For every brazenly stylistic franchise entry, there are several that take no chances.

And yet, despite the odds of being tormented by a boardroom assemblage of sounds and images every time we go to a theater, we still hope the movies will love us back, the way we keep showing them love with our hard-earned cash. In some ways, this makes Robert Montague Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) — a doormat of a servant granted eternal life and superhuman combat skills by Count Dracula (Nicolas Cage) — the most relatable Hollywood leading man in ages as he tries to figure out how to escape his master’s mystical grasp. But this comparison is also the only thing that makes the movie remotely amusing, and it feels entirely accidental. Shamefully, even Cage can’t save a role that seems, on paper at least, like it could have been fun.

Renfield is bad in a way too many big studio movies are bad, yet it proves to be one of the worst examples of a self-reflexive, pop-culture-referencing modern “property” that plays like a hollow impression of something better. That isn’t an abstract thought: This $80 million monstrosity is desperately