Renfield reviews: Nicolas Cage as Dracula praised as 'hypnotic'

Renfield is coming. The action-comedy-horror take on Bram Stoker's Dracula lands in UK cinemas later this week on 14 April with Nicolas Cage starring as the legendary vampire.

The film follows RM Renfield, Dracula's long-suffering servant who falls in love with a traffic cop and desires to be free of his vampiric boss.

Nicholas Hoult plays Renfield while Awkwafina plays traffic cop Rebecca with the cast also featuring Ben Schwartz as a mob enforcer.

Read more: Renfield stars admit seeing Nicolas Cage as Dracula was 'pretty intimidating'

The film has been screened to critics ahead of its release later this week and the first reviews for Renfield are finally coming in.

TheWrap mostly praised Renfield for its take on the horror icon: "Renfield is a great example of how Universal could resurrect its Dark Universe.

Read more: Six big actors you forgot played Dracula

"Take tangential characters or questions audiences have wondered about and find a way to actually explore them. Hoult and Cage do so well in the roles and the script does its best to find a new way into modernising Stoker’s incomparable novel.

"These are the children of the night worth following!"

In a four star review, Empire said: "It’s a horror-comic orgy of gore, with any number of bad guys torn to pieces, but occasionally pauses for poignant moments about the life Renfield lost by submitting to his master and unusual spins on vampire lore."

Collider gave the movie a B+ rating and said: "To absolutely no one’s surprise, McKay seemingly allowed Cage near-full freedom to be as Cage-y as he wanted with this project, and the result is a hypnotic, Technicolor, over the top Dracula who anchors the film’s silliness with Cage’s signature brand of expressionism."

In a mixed review, Variety said: "The calculation at the core of Renfield is a cynical one: The filmmakers know that an action film will be bigger at the box office than something that’s just an oddball Nick Cage vampire film."

Renfield is in cinemas from 14 April.

Watch below: Renfield: Ben Schwartz and Awkwafina talk Nicolas Cage