Like the recent "Bullet Train," this is a romp - what Glenn Frey called "Heartache Tonight," incidentally ("which, let's face it, is what it is ... " is what he said; look it up!). I don't know why the Glenn Frey quote occurs to me, exactly, but it seems appropriate. All the skewered people and geysers of blood are, like in "Bullet Train," meant in good fun - we're in an area past worrying, here, and Tom Savini's special-effects laden trips aren't the point, here. But, then again, neither is some of the gloomy despondency that accompanies such work - and leads to Eli Roth's "Hostel," which offended Harvey Weinstein (he refused to distribute it) and lead to a whole slew of slow-down-and-dwell-on-it pictures, not the least being James Wan and his "Saw" series, which can't tell if it's ripping off David Fincher's "Seven" (serial killer with a long game plan) or Takashi Miike's "Audition" (well - you know - or you can tell from the *poster*), in any case depriving us of the money shot from the latter because he'd rather keep it off-screen. (*Sigh* ... ) In any event, the energy here is good and constant, and like in "Bullet Train" with its figuring "mansplaining" into the dialogue, here we've entered a diagetic space in film one could only call "post-post-modern"; the group discussions from the beginning and as a continuing thread throughout the film to help with co-dependent relationships seem out of Chuck Palahniuk, whether it's The Narrator in "Fight Club" meeting Darla or, similarly, the guy in "Choke" going to these sort of meetings in an overwrought, desperate bid to connect, make *any* connection - but such is modern life, and the movie skips gaily over such pretenses and pretensions. It wouldn't be much fun if it didn't skip ahead 180 miles and hour, and we weren't already familiar with narcos, group sessions, Asian female cops, young sensitive guys, Nicholas Cage, and, for that matter, the corpus of Chuck Palahniuk - which we are. Why not go? The show I went to in Portland was *sold out*, and it was just a Saturday matineé. Which is the point. Why not go ... ?? Why *not* ... ?? Heh-heh. (Nicholas Cage Dracula Pez™ dispenser coming soon - just kidding!!!)
Review of Renfield
