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Learn more by visiting acast.com slash advertise. Hello and welcome to Caged In! As ever brought to you by the breadcrumbs collective and hosted by me, Petros Pat Silva. If you're new here to this podcast, what we do is watch every single Nicklaus Caged film, chronological order to determine is he the greatest actor of all time.
Join us for episode 98, 98 outing for Caged thereabouts. It's probably some very small ones. Yeah, but it's the 98th episode of this strand of the podcast. And I don't do it alone.
No, I'm joined by a guest each week to help me answer that question and discuss the film. And I was very fortunate to be joined by somebody who is an absolute legend when it comes to British criticism and just a fountain of knowledge on all things film and all things Dracula. And that was pertinent for this chat, because we are discussing the 2023, Chris McKay directed horror comedy Renfield. And my guest is the one and only Kim Newman.
This chat is slightly different than others. Probably dive into the film as deeply as we would do. We just kind of talk about the copalo's fascination with Dracula, Caged's betrayal, Caged's fascination with the character as well. And just a broad overview of Dracula within cinema literature and Kim's own outings with his novel series, Anodracula.
There's all types of fun that stuff to sink your teeth into, ignore the pun, but it wasn't unintentional. That was very unintentional pun. So yeah, so sit back and enjoy my chat with Kim Newman about all things Dracula and Renfield. We're heading to New Orleans to join Dracula and his long suffering familiar as we take a look 2023's horror comedy Renfield directed by Chris McKay with a script by Ryan Ridley based on a story by Robert Kirkman.
Filmsnars Nicholas Holt, Aquafina, Ben Schwartz, playing the Lord of Leisure himself, the one and only Nicholas Cage. Joining me to take a bite of the neck of this film is writer critic novelist broadcaster and a man I'm pretty sure if there's anything to know about Dracula that he doesn't already know. It's not worth knowing. Kim Newman, how are you tonight, Kim?
I'm very well. Thank you. Well, I've got to ask you as I ask all my guests when they first come on this podcast is are you a Nicholas Cage fan? Can obviously you're a film fan?
You're a horror fan. Yeah, I've probably seen more of his work than the average viewer because I do the direct direct to anything on theatrical column in Empire. So I'm afraid with the two or three films he makes in between the films everybody's heard of. Yeah, he does regularly.
So I've seen stuff like the one with the Lions loose on the boat. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The bank robbery set in America shot in Bulgaria, all those things.
I've seen them as well as the top of the line. Nicholas Cage film. Amazing. You're a man in the trenches like me, Kim.
I've been to those low stuff lows and I've been to the highest of highs. So it's good to know. Yeah, it's amazing to know your well versed stuff. What would have been the first Nicholas Cage film that you remember seeing?
Or was that one? I know he's telling you what was the impact of what obviously that's not one that he did. What was the impact on that? I looked it up and I hadn't seen for instance at that time past time to Rump, Rich White High or Valley Girl.
I didn't catch up with those until later. So Rumplefish was the first film I saw him in. And obviously he's not the lead in that. He's just part of an ensemble.
He's pretty good. And I think I asked him that we as he was racing with the moon was I think the next of his films that was theatrically released in Britain. And I was working as a critic then. So I saw that.
I was saying it wasn't until I looked you up today that I even remembered he was in racing with the film. Frankly, almost nobody remembers anyway. I haven't seen it since the press show. And I mean, I'm sure he's in it.
It's a 1940s set, kind of mixed up kid movie, but that's about it. Probably the first of starring performances would have been Peggy Soudon married. But I think that that may well be the thing that most established him as an international lead. What was the impact?
Did that leave a lasting impression on you, Kim? Like, were you like, honestly, more of this guy? Was the voice as Kathleen Turner was? I thought he was good in that.
The one that everybody loves that I really didn't like was Moonstruck, which I mean, I remember a lot of people at the time, like, it's a film a lot of people have warmed up to these. I remember just thinking it was terrible. But that said, I love racing in Arizona. And from there, it was like, well, the heart and some of the more eccentric choices along the way, Vampire's Kiss, which I'm actually going to talk about.
Well, yeah, that was like, 1987, kind of like an important year in kind of Nicolas Cage's career, because he had Raising Arizona, Moonstruck. And I believe he filmed Vampire's Kiss. It was almost like this kind of... But beforehand, he was a process copeless nephew who was putting a couple of copeless films.
And I think probably it wasn't until around that period of having making Moonstruck raising Arizona in a glut. It was like, then he became an actor that people knew. But yeah, it was a recognized name, rather than just one of many people were around. What age is my own journalist?
So let's talk about Vampire's Kiss. Was that one that you managed to catch at the time, or is that one? Sorry, the pressure, I reviewed it first, the multiformblis, I think. Yeah, I liked it.
I liked it again. I like it now. It is certainly an eccentric movie. And I'd probably a slightly sensitive one.
But interestingly, I don't know if Robert Kirkman thought about it, but it's another film which of Vampire is a toxic boss. Yes. And I think that certainly Cage uses a few of the yeah, acting tricks, I think what I've done in Vampire's Kiss. But I think that's because in Vampire's Kiss he is very much borrowing bits of Max Rekken, the Svarado.
100%. Yeah. But actually, but of course, the film that he's not in, that he reduced Shadow of Empire, is all as well as Max Rek. And I think it's on the interview, in around that time, he pointed out that Max Rek's performance in NOSARAR2.
I was quite a bit to John Barrymore's performance in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And you can see that there is a sort of a silent cinema style that he does sometimes.
Certainly it's what he seems to associate with vampires. Well, yeah, that's kind of Nicholas Cage's. Well, he kind of brings that in right. We saw it pastished in the unbearable way of massive talent that his favourite film is the Cabinet of Dr.
Calligari. But I think that's pulled from real Nicholas Cage, right? Yeah, he's always been like a film fan, my comics man. Genuinely wide cultural interest.
And I think that that manifests sort of throughout. Obviously, there's something about Dracula and his family. It's because his brother made a Dracula. Well, yeah, the tendrils go quite wide.
He made that before his uncle made Bram's focus. Even Sophia Coppola was in the TV show of what we do with the Shadow. And if you kind of look at the Coppola family, as I do on this podcast, and like a wider spectrum, and you look at the Schwartzman side of the family. So John Schwartzman, who is a DOP, one of his early films was Rockula.
So the canon films like Dracula, Dracula comedy, and then Dracula Untold as well, and they were trying to kind of revitalise the... I know that about the time Francis Coppola made Dracula, he pointed out that in the Godfather, Marlon Brando is impersonating Dracula when he dies. He does that thing with the making fangs out of Orébio. Yes, yes.
And has a bad back going. So, plainly, it's something that the story means a lot to them. Yeah, as obviously it does to me. Well, you're saying that, Kim.
What was your first encounter of the character of Dracula? Was it through the book or was it through? Officially, my first encounter was with the Bel-Gosie film. That was the transformational film in my life.
However, of course, I could go back to, I think the first time I saw Dracula, it was on Doctor Who. But the thing is, in that, it turns out to be a robot. But I know I'd seen Dracula in Carry on Christmas, at the beat of Uswood's Place, and I'm sure I'd seen comedians doing Dracula or Fat Bug's Funny cartoon, but it was the Lugosi film. It's kind of where I come in to the genre and the character.
And obviously, again, Renfield relates to that very closely. Yeah, with that kind of amazing, Dwight Fry performance, right? As Renfield, it's a film much to my shame. Like, I only kind of caught in the run up to Renfield coming up, because it's kind of been a massive blind spot of mine.
One of the reasons I wanted to get you on the podcast was to kind of, maybe like, give us some, where this film kind of fits in the kind of, because there's a pan-fion of Dracula and cinema. And like, what do you think it is that this fascination with the character that is kind of revisited all the time, Kim? It's about because there are like two or three other Dracula movies coming up this year. And they never go away.
I mean, I do this thing on social media, your daily Dracula, where I post an image from a Dracula movie or TV show or a gay or advert cartoon, whatever. And I thought that that was going to last about three months, we're coming up to three years and there is no end in sight. So it's something that absolutely permeates culture. I think you can probably not go through a day without coming across Dracula in some place, or some reference, just if you're scrolling the internet or reading newspapers, watching television, walking down the street.
At some point in every day, you will be confronted by the shadow of Dracula and stuff. And there are a few other things in culture that have that absolute ball for basicness. There are some things that sort of move big and then go away. It's like, you know, Tarzan's huge, it's not cultural figure.
There's a town named after Tarzan, which Eggo Rice borrows, you know, old, basically. But Tarzan, the last Tarzan film, didn't do any business. And it's like, that was a story that they would go back to every couple of years and it would always kind of click. The last, it seems maybe that is falling off from cultural radar.
But Dracula and Sherlock Holmes and the three musty tears are still on. Yes. The Christmas Carol and one or two of the big popular culture, things they will remake. Jekyll Hyde is another one, Frankenstein.
Peter Pan. Yeah, every year you will get a version of one of those stories, or re-imagining or re-majning. How is it in Wonderland? But there are like only 15 of these stories.
Yeah, these kind of multimedia franchises. I suspect the more recent ones that I ended simply by copyright or rights ownership. I'm thinking of James Bond or Batman, which are wholly owned by corporations. The thing about Dracula and Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, three musty tears, whatever, is that they are out of copyright.
They are open source. Anybody can have a swing at them. And I think that that means, of course, you get many, many more knockoffs and ripoffs than sort of lazy versions. Well, God.
But it wouldn't have those if there wasn't a core of power there in the first place. Yeah. It wasn't so much really good stuff that it's still possible to come up with new variations, or new versions, or new ideas. It's like the new spin on Dracula that you get in so many things.
Or even just going back to also, there's only things in the novel that you can, yeah, extract the highlight and do as whole little films in themselves. The fact that we've got to film named after Renfield. Yes. In the cast list of the Dracula films or plays or TV shows, he's like, hey, there's already been a film called Bad Helsing.
I think there is a film called Mina, and there's a great chart that we called Lucy in the mirror. So yeah, it's like when you're supporting cast at famous, when people know the names of archetypes. He's like, I mean, even just outside of versions of Dracula or classic Gothic horrors, yeah, the archetypes of Bad Helsing, Mina, Lucy, Renfield, you can find them in so many horror movies. Yeah, you can look at, yeah, they, yeah, Alien has a Mina and a Lucy on board, the Nostromo.
Yeah, Veronica Cartwright is the Screaming All The New Dies. Sigourney Weaver is the sensible woman who sort of bonds with the creature and lives. Yes. You see, that's Bram's focus idea.
Yeah, actually in the Alien 3, Paul McGahn plays Renfield to the Alien. Yeah, so it's like that you can find these versions, you can find these characters or these archetypes, the seated throughout horror, and some of them aren't necessarily things that Stoker invented, but probably he put them in a form that was replicable. Like you mentioned a point there about obviously the characters are now getting their own film stuff like that. Obviously on the horizon, we've got a film that is just one section of the novel.
Yeah, the boat's got its own film. I mean, I know that's been in development for a while, but again, Alien is the Demeter section, a Dracula. Yeah, a bunch of people on a boat and the mysterious thing in the cargo of all this killing of both one by one. Yeah, that's just one chapter of Dracula and it's in a scriptly, it's the kind of thing that you could drop from the novel and it wouldn't make any difference except his brilliant because it doesn't feature any of the main characters.
I mean, obviously it features Dracula, but not as a character that you actually see up close, talking it, he's just there the monster. And I think that there, I mean, I saw last year there was a film actually I think called Brab Soak is Bad Helsing, which was just Lucy, it was just Lucy being sick and you don't see Dracula. And that it makes you, and I think that people made that realize that the exorcist is the Lucy section of Dracula. Yes, yes.
It's the girl in the bed getting sick and nobody understands why and various doctors come in and can't do anything. And then the why is character, the bad health and character comes in and can do something, but it's a terrible cost. Yeah, there it is. Again, that's another couple of chapters of Dracula that you can then turn into.
And I've seen versions which is just Jonathan in the castle, the first couple of chapters. And some of the plays drop that and do just the drawing room stuff. It may well be the fact that Dracula is a great popular novel, but not Dickens or Jane Austen. I actually of course, Dickens and Jane Austen have had weird riches and why, but people who adapt it, often feel they have a license to fiddle with it to draw things out to do different stuff, which people who are adapting Shakespeare may don't.
Or again, there are plenty of Shakespeare, modern day versions or westerns or whatever. What was it that kind of drew you into the story of Dracula and kind of? Well, I say my first, it's really encountered with the story of the character of the Melodegosi film. I think it was here, it was Lugosi, the performance.
But it's not even from 1931, it's not like other film acting. And I, of all the great monsters, Dracula is the one who could talk to you. And that actually is really good. I mean, I'm Dracula doesn't talk much after the first couple of chapters.
He talks a lot in the first chapters. The Frankenstein monster in the book is articulat in the film, he grunts. But Dracula, you can have a conversation with him. I think the thing that I find interesting about him as one of the archetypal monsters is that most monsters don't have a choice.
The wolf man is cursed. The Frankenstein monster is horribly abused by his parents. Dracula has chosen to be Dracula. He knows the difference between good and evil.
And he's picked evil. He has picked being a predator, being a parasite. And that's all he wants to do, even though he is, you know, cultured and sophisticated, has a breadth of skills and abilities and powers and the title and money and all this kind of stuff. He has chosen to be a computer master.
And I actually slightly, because I think obviously the root role matter of interpretations, and I kind of like, yeah, George Hamilton with the Sun-tan is Dracula, I think he's very funny. But the ones I really like are, we go see your Christopher Lee when Dracula was just evil. I find the performances that you get from Gary Oldman or Frank Magella, where Dracula was trying to be romantic. What don't quite click for me.
He's still creepy. He still needs to be. And I think the story doesn't work. Not a monster.
Yes. Yeah. Even though that copeland has got some really monstrous imagery right of Dracula, like the kind of the look of Dracula and that is quite terrifying. Like I watched it quite recently.
And it's like, well, yeah, obviously you've written novels about Dracula. What was it that kind of drew you to writing about Dracula? Well, the novel, it was just the, I was probably thinking of those, do you know the Marvel comic series? What year?
Yes. Yeah. It is a cartoon and a while back, but the original comics from the 70s and 80s, and DC had a similar thing called imaginary stories. And that's when you do an alternate version of a fictional character.
Obviously, there have been plenty of what if the Nazis had won the war or yeah, the British Empire had never fallen or all these kind of stories. But my thought was what if Dracula won? But I was thinking also of probably of those things of what if Spider-Man joined the Fantastic Four or that. So just exploring the world of Dracula, but with a different plot and a different angle.
And then once I got into that, it as a concept grew and became much more interesting to me. And I hope to the reader in that there, the idea of Dracula winning of taking over the country of changing the world was very appealing. But also, it kind of had a lot of contemporary resonance. I mean, I think the book 30 years old now, so it was written under the influence of Rogen and Margaret Thatcher.
But it was republished last year in the anniversary edition. I thought, what's changed in 30 years is that we all now know what it's like to wake up and discover that literally the worst person in the world is now in charge of the most powerful nation on the planet. And I think that may well be one of the reasons why the book is still in print. People understand all too well now what it's like living with somebody Yeah, utterly self obsessed, monstrous and unreasonable, in absolute charge.
In the story of Dracula, right? He kind of gives up his plans of world domination. I know quite sure it's got more interesting to the domestic story. And so Dracula in the novel, he's actually kind of a loser.
He's got these great plans. And then their sideline, because he becomes obsessed with the wife of a junior solicitor, it's almost pathetic for a master villain to be brought down by to this really petty level. And I think that there is a sense that when when Dracula comes to London in the novel, he's out of his debt. There's a great line where somebody says that they've seen him walking by the Thames wearing a straw hat that doesn't suit him.
And so he's like this tourist, you know, the foreigner who doesn't quite get, you know, and there's even a bit where they're doing that thing of going around the houses to destroy his copy. So he can't use them. And they find the sink where he's shaved and he's not washed it out. So it's got hair and foam and bits of blood around it.
And you got this sort of idea of Dracula and stuff and he was useless. Yeah, some kind of like useless bachelor, right? I don't like loafing around. But Bram's got that deliberately.
I think it's a strain. And you can't go too far in it because Dracula then becomes completely pathetic. I think the film that does that really well is Blood for Dracula. We do no care.
Somebody who is so completely out of time, yeah, that he's got a wheelchair about the people and there are no virgins to drink anymore. And yeah, he's horribly dependent on his servant, but he's still viciously abusive. Yeah. And I think that that again, it's a reading of the role.
It makes Dracula a complicated villain in an interesting way. Yeah. What you've mentioned a few of the standout kind of Dracula, what would you say kind of, yeah, up there is like the totems of Dracula. I've got a lot of time for Dracula's daughter.
I think there are things about son of Dracula, I really like as well. Although I don't think Long Chaney Jr is a particularly good Dracula. Of the Hammer films, I really like the first couple, actually some of the later ones taste the blood of Dracula or the Satanic right, it's a Dracula. Then it's Blood for Dracula, we don't care.
I like the Louis Jordan TV film Count Dracula and obviously not Sorato in both the Salsidzky, Bernerson version and the Max Wreck Efforty Murnow version. Then you get to stuff, I suppose in the modern era, the Dracula to beat is Adam Sandler. He's not the first to play Dracula as a sitcom dad. That's a surprisingly common approach.
There's a whole monster high franchise and there was an anime Don Dracula, which seemed to have been first to beat the show called Young Dracula. Again, this idea of Dracula as sort of out of touch but well-intentioned father. That's a reading of how the hell did that happen? How did that, what about great icons of unregenerative form?
This guy, maybe Grandpa Munster. Because the Munsters is a universal property and so it is essentially the mutation of the Universal Pictures. The Karloff-Rankins time monster, Lugosi is a Dracula, the Wall's Man. It's sort of the kid's version of that, the monster kid's version.
So what were your thoughts when you first heard about them making Renfield? I suppose I thought another one because I can think of two novels about Renfield and there's been a previous movie, Renfield the Vampire. So yeah, it's gone over. There were things about the structure of the magazine, the fact that Universal has been using the fact that Universal has had various problems with keeping their monsters going.
Probably having the monsters fairly grim reboot this year. But I'm thinking of stuff like that, Hellsing Dracula Untold's The Tumka, the Tumka, it's like they had all these properties and they sort of screwed them up. Yeah. They brought it rubbish up.
They were getting up, the mummy was going to be the beginning of their kind of version of the Marvel movies. It was just so disastrous. So they scotch that. And then they went back and the film I think is the template for Renfield is the reboot they did at The Invisible Man, it was for The Boss, which took one of their less well-known franchises.
I mean, they'd made four or five Invisible Man films, depending on whether you can't see Avogastella Victor. And going back and again, that gave you a version of that story that was not one you had seen before. It told the story of The Invisible Man from the point of view of someone who couldn't see it, rather than from his point of view. Which was very effective and it worked and it did well.
So I assumed that Universal decided that they would do that with their properties. They would go and make smaller scale, slightly more adult-oriented pictures that were allowed to be scary or to do different things. Actually, I think Renfield doesn't lead particularly into being frightening. It is a horror comedy run that will fall out for a movie.
I've no more problem with that. I kind of like the scary Dracula next. Yeah, because I guess even with The Invisible Man and Renfield, it seems that Universal is still kind of up in the air what they want to do. Right?
And then the thing is, what they did in the 1930s and 40s, and probably the most important film they made was Frankenstein meets the Wolfman. Because that was the film that proved you could make a crossover, you could pull together disparate stories with a franchise. Yeah, the Avengers is essentially Frankenstein meets the Wolfman or House of Frankenstein. You establish a bunch of characters, you bring them together in one big team up.
None of that would have been conceivable if it wasn't what Universal did in the 1940s. Then you get the issue that obviously if you're a company you want that kind of a franchise and they sort of manage it for a while with their previous reboot of the movie, the Brendan Fraser film, which I'm not even sure if that's definitive over because I think they're still making scorpion king movements. But the franchise, which some people have a promise for, I didn't particularly care for it myself, there was an ambition to scale there. I don't know, because I understand that Renfield hasn't made the money they would have liked.
So we're not going to be seeing more of those. On the one hand, it doesn't really matter because I like it enough as it is. And maybe it would be hard for instance to do a follow up, which had Renfield and the invisible band together because the styles and tones and moods and approaches of the two movies are idemical. They don't really go together.
You couldn't do it a team up. I mean, or you could, but it would be a stretch. Yes, yeah, absolutely. Though in theory four and Iron Man shouldn't be in the same film, but they've actually got away with it.
More indeed Frankenstein and Dracula come from different universities of fiction. Because you've had in the 90s, right, when they kind of we had a resurgence where you had you had Coppola doing Dracula, you had Kenneth Branagh doing Frankenstein and then wasn't there a Dr. Jack or Mr. Hyde movie?
Yes, yes. And yeah, I think maybe every time somebody does one of these stories, you get that somebody else feels obliged to do the ball. I think we're probably doing a Frankenstein soon. Yes, definitely.
Definitely. So what did you think of the casting of Nicholas Cage? Obviously, Dracula is such an iconic character. I can see why he wanted to do it.
Yes. And but also I can see why that was something that seemed from a creative point of view. It's a pitch, isn't it? Nicholas Cage is Dracula.
But then the film isn't about him. Nicholas Hult does the heavy lifting. Yeah, and I think brilliant. That's a really interesting point.
Obviously, people have underplayed Dracula effectively. Strangely, Klaus Kinsky underplays Dracula. And Louis Jourdan, I think does it brilliantly. It's one of the chilliest performances in the role, but it's kind of low-key and charming rather than the Christi Bully bangs bear t-se, he's singing, or even Gary Oldman.
That goes for the throat literally. And the scenery chewing. It's like, and I think obviously Nicholas Cage is having to compete with all of that. But also, he's having to play, he's not just playing Dracula.
He's playing Bella the Gozies track. Yes. Just as Nicholas Hult is playing Dwight Breis redfield, not Bram Stoker's. So you get, yeah, and actually again with his interest in silence in a bar, he does seem to be doing Lon Chaney in London after midnight, that lost vampire movie.
He's even wearing the same hat. Yeah, and the teeth right. Yeah, and the shark tea is very Lon Chaney. But I'm glad to see that it's with all, it's not just an imitative performance.
It is a version of Dracula we can't see. The kind of weadling, manipulative toxic boss. And I think the bit is where Dracula turns round and is dependent and guilt trips redfield. But it's sort of, again, that's not a Dracula we've seen before, but it's quite effective.
Yeah, there's an amazing scene that like two-hander between them when he comes to visit him in his apartment, right, that kind of like, you get this. He's always like, love bombing him and then making him feel guilty for like, I need you, Renfield. Like, why have you done this to me and like, making him out to be the monster in this kind of weird codependent relationship? So good, because this film acts right as a direct sequel to the 1931 Todd Brown.
Yeah, I think it's the first sequel since Dracula's daughter in 1935, which I thought was great. Yeah, and he even uses the font from the poster for the title. I thought it was like the Invisible Man, it's a study of a toxic relationship. And maybe that's not a bad way of rebooting your monsters.
And logically, the next one is Frankenstein, which is about parents. Because you've had the Invisible Man, which is about a toxic boyfriend. Dracula is a toxic boss, and Frankenstein is a toxic parent. Yeah, and that's actually, that would make a good trilogy.
Yeah, I think they're doing brighter Frankenstein, or that was on the cards as a possible next one. I will say that two-hander scene in Redfield's apartment, I don't know if they've done it deliberately, but it uses a joke from one of the Anadrasula books. Amazing. The thing about the welcome mat, I made that out.
Amazing. Yeah, I love that. Like, did you know beforehand that it was going to be a sequel? Was it kind of when you saw it?
I mean, I saw quite an early screening. I think I'm using the scene with, yeah, the effects weren't 100% finished when I saw it. So I went in, not even knowing, I mean, I'd seen the trailer, which slightly misrepresented the film made it interesting kind of way. So it was, yeah, it literally came as a surprise to me where they went with it.
Yes. And I thought that the choice of making a fall-up to the Lugosi go on starting with the footage from it, and I mean, just for people who are not Dracula-obsessives. In the 1931 Bel-Gosi film, Redfield goes to Castle Dracula as Jonathan Harper does in the book, and Keanu Reeves is John Harper in the couple of film, or the character in Nosferatu. But by having Redfield go to the castle, and then go back.
That means that, yeah, something to do in both sections of the narrative, in many films, the Hammer film kills off Jonathan Harper after the first the castle section, because there's not that much more for him to do. He never watched Keanu Reeves does it the rest of the couple of film. He comes back with white hair. A couple of people are carrying the narrative.
Yeah. But, and it's almost certainly down to Garrett Ford and John Bouldesten who wrote the 1931 book, because it's not the case in the play. But you have this thing of Redfield being your true life. The guy who goes to Transylvania and brings Dracula back and then becomes his minion.
And obviously, you know, Bel-Gosi is a pop culture immortal. So it's white-fly. Yes. I mean, yeah, it's Cooper.
It's not about him. And it's a, I know, probably, I mean, you saw the first time recently. Isn't it the most surprising performance in the movie? What?
A white-fry. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like, it's like, it's got this menace to it. It's quite, it's surprisingly funny.
Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's great at it. It's not that laugh. It's like, everybody remembers to do Legosi's Dracula voice.
I noticed that Nicholas Hall does white-rise laugh at that point. It is, I think the straightest piece of it, Nickle did it. It's Dracula, Day does love it yet. A film really doesn't work.
But the piece of it, Nickle's Redfield is really good. And that actually also uses, I think, most of the script goes to he builds. Has indeed, does the 1970s porn movie Dracula sucks? Amazing.
He also features a redfield. He does that laugh. So how? Obviously, yeah, somebody who's well-versed on all things Dracula.
How well does Renfield kind of stick to the law of the character or does it blend it? Well, it picks stuff up, which sort of, it has this thing of, Dracula giving Renfield some of his powers in order to keep him alive. Which, it's not absolutely original to this film. It has been done before in some ways.
I mean, actually, I think it's even done in the, love of first fight that George Hamilton movie has, Redfield, Artie Johnson plays it in there as somebody who's preserved out of time along with Dracula. But this is the film that explains the mechanics of how he's done it. And I think it fits in quite nicely. It's sort of a thought through.
Dershen of vampires. Yeah, there's like the, his blood brings you back to life, right? And it goes like, yeah, were you surprised as I was by like the gore in this film? Because it's quite gruesome, right?
It is, it's very gruesome, but it's somehow not upsetting. Yeah. People you don't like having terrible things done to them. Yeah, it does that kind of evil dead two thing, right?
By turning the violence up to 11 that you kind of like, it's broached into funny now, as opposed to being disturbing. Yeah. And I think it's, that it's Nick and Salk and Al Caprino in the middle of it, the sort of suite. And that if you stop one too related, for instance, I mean, I quite like the current evil dead rise, but it gives you nobody.
It's like you come out of it and it's been amazing, but a couple of days later, I could quite remember who everybody was and how they related, what the plot of the story was, but it's got gruesome and horrible things happening. And it's kind of nasty, whereas Redfield strangely is kind of sweet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It kind of like walks his tightrope, right?
I've kind of balanced it kind of sidelines the horror completely to be like kind of. I'd say my preference would be for a Dracula who's who's scarier at some point. And maybe the boy to the demeanor will actually do that. We'll go with, yeah, yeah.
And of course, there's another version of the R2D as well. So that, yeah, who knows what, yeah, how that's going to pan out. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it will be very period specific as it's a Robert Eggers film. It will be very.
Yeah, well, obviously, yeah, I look forward to it. Amazing, amazing. So let's talk about Nicholas Cage's performance. He said he's kind of doing Bella Lugosi.
What kind of, well, they're thinking, what are they thinking you liked about his performance? Yeah, I mean, I like the fact that he's doing Bella Lugosi doesn't do the kind of impressionist Bella Lugosi. He's doing stuff like the gestures rather than the voice. The voice is easy.
I mean, the thing is if you just do a Bella Lugosi in verse, you get Adam's answer. Yes. Yeah. And you can't get away with that.
And the weird little tituring in Giggles, he does. So there's a bit of Max Frick there. It's a sort of self-delighted villain. The guy who knows how bad he is and lets you know.
I mean, there is a, I suppose it's almost a Disney villainess reading of Dracula. I like the look as well. I thought that the costume was good. And the teeth and the outfit, it's still, it's effectively striking without just being the, because again, if you get a Bella Lugosi's costume now, you look like Grandpa Munster.
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It's kind of like, I don't know, there's a, there is a timelessness to it.
Yeah. It kind of like the, this is like quite modern cuts to the necks and stuff like that, of the clothes he's wearing. Like, I found him just, like you said before, kind of on paper as a pitch, Nicolas Cage, seems perfect, perfect in the role, right? So he's kind of wanted to do this role.
You'd imagine ever since, I don't know, 1987, he had a stab at it with Vampire's Kiss and it's kind of like he's been chomping at the bit to ever since. I would be surprised if, I mean, he's probably, he's of the generation that would have seen the the Lugosi film on television when he was a kid. I mean, I'm sure that's it. It's that very, I know that, because I know people who worked on it, but if you had El Toro, made the Wolf Man, it was his favorite, the kid who's Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man.
Amazing. He hoped he would be a big enough kid. He said, apparently, he and his brother used to play Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man. It's like, that's what he really wanted to do.
And actually, the Wolf Man was another universal horror reboot that didn't really click. So where would you say that Renfield kind of fits within the canon of Dracula films? Do you think it'll be one that will will stand the test of time? Obviously, we're talking a time when it kind of hasn't.
Just out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, for a while, it had seemed likely the lower, as I said, the most successful Dracula reboot of the last 30 years is Hotel Transylvania. Said there's a whole bunch of terrible, I mean, bad, healthy, lee, you ex-roably gentlemen, we track there as an input meaner is Dracula, I'm told I thought it was all right.
But again, he didn't click. That was that Joffrey Smiles TV series. I quite like the BBC's staff at it with Space Ban, but the last episode of that, three all away, Blaine Trinity has one of the worst Dracula's ever. And so do you Van Helsing?
And so Renfield is mainly because the competition has been pretty poor, is up there as one of the best Dracula's in the 21st century. Will it be interesting to say? Because it's, I mean, besides the voyage of the Demeter, Chloe Zhao is working on a science fiction Western Dracula. Robert Eggers is doing us for R2 and Marvel are doing Blaine.
Yes. And they just announced Mia Gough was playing Lilith, who is in the comics, the daughter of Dracula. So presumably Marvel must be looking around to somebody that they will, they'll get into the other era. So somebody becoming the play, the two of a Dracula version of Dracula.
And Renfield is a horror comedy, like somebody who's kind of made a name for yourself as kind of being a master of knowing all things about horror. What's your kind of thoughts in general on the kind of horror genre, horror comedy genre as a whole? Oh, it's very much a matter of, and horror comedy has been part of the, certainly the cinema genre since the Kat McConnary and the Silent Period or the old Dark House. And I love those, but I think it helps probably if you actually have proper, proper scary stuff and proper laughs.
I'm not a fan of the trauma approach to cinema, where you put it up with jokes because you haven't got anything else. Yeah, it's like, and if you then sort of defensively say, oh, we were supposed to be shit, if you use the criticism. But so I think it needs a bit more mouse than that. It's not an easy mix to to pull up.
But when it's pulled off, well, it works. Because obviously they're both pulling from a similar reaction from people, right? They're both, they're both looking for involuntary reaction to a film from the audience, right? But one is either you want someone to laugh, the other is you want them to be scared.
So they almost, I don't know, they always seem, what is, I mean, it's the thing they say that, when you preview a comedy or a horror film, you don't even have to read the cards to know that it's working on but if it's like a rom-com or a drama or an action movie, but you don't know until people tell you, until they're up on high, you can actually spend in the lobby, no, and certainly we probably can get that. Amazing, amazing. Well, yeah, as we start to wrap things up, Kim, this is a silly question I ask people based on the films we discussed, obviously we've looked at Renfield today. Based on this film alone, Kim, it's Nicholas Cage, the greatest actor of all time.
He's not even the greatest actor in the Beatles. He's the outstanding performer in this film, and it should be because he's called Renfield. Yes. I think it's a really good supporting performer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, I also think it's a very canny move on Cage's part to take Dracula as a supporting role. 100%. Rather than just go through the, just be another Dracula, an inter-dramatic, inter-dramatic movie.
That's quite a generous performance from him, right? I mean, you get this from people who work with him as well. For somebody who is a very large performer, he doesn't stamp on other actors. Yeah, there are other actors that people don't want to work with, even though no matter how brilliant they are, they're a nightmare to be as well.
But I think obviously the way that he works with a sort of here or with Pedro Pascal, who's a great two-hand actor. All the way back to Laura Derny's, while the arts are wholly hunter in Raising Arizona, he knows when he can get people to batship. I always find it fascinating watching Cage on screen, and you're saying the way he bounced off people. I've managed to interview countless amounts of people who've worked with him, and they say, not just is he a lovely guy, just like his work ethic is insane as well.
I think even Nicholas Holt will say for this film, like weeks out, Nicholas Cage was off book, knew the film inside out. Like, so Kim, now you get to program a triple bill of films based around... Renfield's got to be in there, but one of them is a Nicholas Cage film, another one is a Dracula film. What are you putting on?
There are no choices, it's Dracula, Bell, and his vampire's kids. Which I think is probably under-rated as well as Nicholas Cage. It's not really a vampire movie. Unless you accept that Jennifer Beals maybe actually is playing a vampire, but Nicholas Cage isn't.
But it's certainly one of the films where Cage goes to extreme. And actually it's probably a modusurbing film that Renfield is near. One hundred percent, and it feels like a film that was like ahead of its time in a weird way. Well yeah, because people weren't talking about the entertainment industry like that.
Yeah, because he's an agent, isn't he? I think it's a literary agent, rather than the show, but the harassment of his secretary in that. I suppose everybody is a movie that's new people like that, and that clearly informs the foreman. But I think it is one of Cage's more terrifying roles.
Yeah, and I think the film kind of acts as a really damning, on kind of 80s yuppy culture as well, in the way that American Psycho does. And that's kind of a film that has won the hearts and kind of... Do you mean you look at something like Letterbox, and it's always one of the most watched films and stuff like that? People love it, but it feels like with Van Pite's Kiss, because it was hoking fun at the time that it was made in the 80s.
It's almost like, oh no, we can't look at ourselves as these gross grotesque people. Yeah, I really like the movie of American Psycho, but I think that it's possible to be an American Psycho and like that movie. Van Pite's Kiss is much harder to get behind than think that that guy is your role model. Peter Lohm, yeah, he's your role model.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's loathsome, isn't it? He's kind of grotesque. Yeah, yeah, even before he starts doing the Mac Shrek-isms and the Nosferatu moves.
Amazing. So I like to always close out with any guests that I have on Keem by asking them, which is their favourite Nicolas Cage film? So which is yours? Plus up between Raising Arizona and Bad Descendants, sorry, Bad Lieutenant, protocol, your lead.
Yeah, fantastic, fantastic choices. Two different sides of Cage as well, you get kind of doing Road Runner and doing one of a deplorable kind of policeman. Amazing. So where's the best place?
Yeah, what have you got coming up on the horizon, Kim? Any books to look forward to? I'm working on the novel video, won't be out for a while. Probably the thing at the moment, it's the 30th anniversary edition of Anadrakula who's out there.
As I check the on social media every day for your daily Dracula, which is archived on my website. So you can catch up with three years worth of Dracula. Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Kim, for coming and getting caged in with me.
Oh, what's happening to it? And there we have it, ladies and gentlemen, a massive thank you once again. It's Kim Neiman for joining me. What an absolute delight it was.
As I said at the intro of this podcast, an absolute legend in what he does, absolutely fountains of knowledge. And I like the fact that Kim probably wasn't up for my shit. The episode was probably a bit different to how it usually was. Some of that is because I was nervous guys.
I was kind of in awe, giving me somebody who I massively look up to. And I know if I actually get a baro, it's just people at the end, which is having a conversation about a mutual interest and a passion, which is film. But you know what? Sometimes you get a bit nervous around people.
And that is what happened here. But all in all, it was a fun time had for me. And hopefully a fun time had for you. If you agree with our views on Renfield or want to carry on the conversation about all things Dracula, please do so by heading over to all the socials.
So that is at KJNPod on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Letterboxed. And TikTok where you can find me over there. We can drop me an email, which is KJNPod at gmail.com. As for next week here on the pod, we're taking a little two week hiatus of any new episodes next week to celebrate Sophia Coppola's birthday.
I'm re-releasing my conversation with the fantastic Mary Wild all about her 2010 film. Sophia Coppola's not Mary's. I'm sure Mary would make amazing films, but she hasn't made any and certainly didn't make one. In 2010, we talked about somewhere.
It's one of the earlier episodes of Coppola Connections and was a fantastic chat. So you'll be able to listen to that again. I'll listen to that for the first time next week. And then the week after, well, we may just have a break or we may just pull something else out of the archives to release to you guys to listen to.
The reason for this brief hiatus is some of you may know, a lot of you probably won't. But I am in the process of recording the first season for a new podcast called Getting Defoe You. Like what we've done here with Nicholas Cage by watching every single film in his filmography, me and Daryl Echoo, you would have heard here on this podcast and of Cage Rage fame are embarking on the entire filmography on William Defoe, which if you just do a little Google is a mammoth task. And we just really wanted to get the ball rolling.
And yeah, just booked basically. An insane recording schedule. You don't really need to know the ins and outs. All you need to know is to keep an eye out for that as well.
You can find that on all the social. So that is at getting defo that is at defou pod on all the socials as well. So check out there for any announcements on when that will be released. But yeah, we've got some fun stuff lined up and already in the can and we'll be announcing when that podcast will be launching very, very soon.
So I hope you join us over there for that as well. If you've enjoyed this episode or any other episode of the podcast, please head on over to pectron.com for slash cajun pod where you can support the podcast by eventually or you can head on over to tea public, especially for your US listener and grab some amazing shirts designed by the fantastic Timson Claire, or you can head on over to Etsy. And yeah, I think you'll be able to type in cajun in pod find the store. And there's a couple of designs up on there, which I recommend for UK listeners more so than US just because of shipping shipping to the US works out really expensive from UK printers on that, whereas tea public are international or US based so it's not too different stores just to make it cheaper for you guys depending on which side of the ocean you live.
If you don't want to part with any money, that is absolutely fine. You can support the podcast by heading over to YouTube and joining join cajun in TV, our brand new venture where I'll be uploading videos where it's stuff that is adjacent to the podcast stuff that I can want to talk about, but don't really feel like I have an episode in me as such just kind of a video essay, ask content and kind of think pieces, if you will, that will be, yeah, debuting up on there and staying there. Or again, you can head on over to apple podcast Spotify or every audience in to this right now and giving me a lovely five star rating in a review. Remember in your rating review to let me know what does Bill Murray say to start your hands and at the end of lost in translation, or what is your favorite Nicholas Cajun and each and every answer will be read out on the podcast.
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