I have loved vampires ever since I was a child. I watched Lost Boys, Van Helsing (it’s good, I don’t care, and that’s coming from Hugh Jackman’s biggest hater) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer at probably too young of an age, but what else was the girl whose favorite book was a book full of epitaphs supposed to watch? There was something so infinitely cool about these usually goth monsters, eternally young, surviving on blood. They were elevated, above all the bullshit I seemed to be bogged down by as a bullied youth. I used to desperately aspire to be a vampire, as if that would solve all of my issues and present me with zero others; it wasn’t until later in life that I really invested in my love of vampires and I got to know the other characters in the most common lore, Dracula’s. It was then I met the character I would have likely been if vampires were real – Renfield, Dracula’s lackey, for lack…ey of a better word. (Forgive the pun).
For those of you who were like me and loved vampires but were too cool to look into Dracula, Renfield is a human who works for the vampire to bring him human victims or brides or whatever Dracula wants. He is only slightly a vampire, with most depictions showing him eating bugs to get close to a tenth of the strength Dracula has. And while that’s incredibly lame, it also gives him immortal life, a small silver lining to that eternal life being solely used for servitude. There are many iterations of this character throughout the multitudes of literature and films about the titular Dracula; his character is so popular, forms of Renfield have branched off into other vampire media as well, with the human sometimes being a willing participant in the murders of their vampire masters, or others being hypnotized or held against their will, losing their sanity in the process. These iterations have many titles, most popularly being referred to as the master vampire’s familiar.
With these examples, I was sort of grateful vampires weren’t real. I had no intention of being Dracula’s little bitch and certainly wasn’t going to eat bugs; and more often than not, these characters never even got to be vampires. They either got murked or they killed themselves. What a horrible and tragic existence I would have fallen victim to. Additionally, these characters really had no personality except for loving their master.
However, my favourite two depictions have been recent, where the Renfield character is both a willing participant, sure, but also has a character unto themselves. He has motivations outside of being a vampire (even if that still is an ever present goal); he has a life, friends, family, and he even can stand up for himself – and these are the characters that, if being fated to familiar, were the kind of familiars I would want to be. And those characters are Renfield himself in the 2023 move Renfield, and Guillermo de la Cruz from the television series What We Do in the Shadows. I wanted to take a moment to appreciate these two characters as a whole, and how their evolution really gives life (pun again, intended) to the undead whose playbook, up until their addition, had gotten pretty stale.
Renfield, directed by Chris McKay, is the depiction of…Renfield, of course, played expertly by Nicholas Hoult (a powerhouse of a performer, and one of my favourites), who is coming to terms with the fact that he no longer wants to work for Dracula (played here by Nicholas Cage and HOLY SHIT, if they do not give Cage a whole Dracula franchise, they are sorely missing out). Part of this is motivated by his blossoming relationship with a beat cop (Awkwafina), but also because he just…is tired, and he wants to do the right things for once in his existence. Renfield is at his most human in this depiction, and in the world of employees finally having enough of their shitty work environments, being underpaid and overworked, I think director McKay really crafts a narrative a lot of people can connect with. Renfield is in group therapy about toxic relationships, he is “quietly quitting” as best as he can (with your boss being Dracula, it’s not an easy feat). While Renfield is still slightly under mind control in the film, with Dracula being able to infiltrate his thoughts and call upon him whenever he sees fit, Hoult’s depiction of Renfield fights back even still. He eats bugs, but only uses that strength to help those in need around him—engaging in some of the most violent but fun fight sequences I have ever seen on film. He essentially becomes a superhero fighting back against drug dealers and vampires (the plot of Renfield 2023 is batshit but in the best possible way), which is a triumphant growth past what his character has done in the past as far as “heroic efforts”, such as a last minute decision Not to sacrifice someone. Hoult is an actor that is naturally easy to root for, playing the every man with a heart of gold so well I can’t help but to think that’s who he is in real life. His Renfield feels like if Superman just gave up the title and was super powered Clark Kent instead….and was way darker with a lot more demons in his past. His Renfield is one that isn’t blindly serving for his own gain, but really is the people’s Renfield.
Having this take on Renfield gives the story of Dracula a new edge, more potential – sure, Dracula remains basically an unstoppable force, but instead of being an unwitting puppet, Renfield is able to break free enough that he creates an enemy, or at the very least a bump in Dracula’s path to world domination. He doesn’t have all the answers, he is not Dracula’s natural enemy like van Helsing, he is essentially the person closest to him. But this Renfield is also not completely Dracula’s lackey either – there is nuance to his character that has not existed before, save for our next contender on this list.
Unlike all of my previous points, What We Do in the Shadows takes yet another spin; Guillermo de la Cruz (played by Harvey Guillén, another one of my favourite actors on earth, a master of subtlety) is his master’s, Nandor (played by Kayvan Novak who will get his own retrospective because him and his performance are everything to me), natural enemy – it is revealed within the series of What We Do in the Shadows that Guillermo is a direct descendant of van Helsing, which leads some of the most brutal whilst accidental vampire killings in any vampire media (Harvey just kills those scenes – balancing his naturally calm and mild disposition with the sheer panic as he literally cannot stop himself from killing vampires). Also unlike 2023’s Renfield, all Guillermo wants is to be a vampire; a childhood dream that is slowly coming true after meeting Nandor one night at his previous position at Panera (I love this show, I cannot express it enough). Guillermo actively helps his master find meals or victims while feeling little to no remorse most of the time. Guillermo is solely interested in becoming a vampire, even though it defies his very nature as a van Helsing. Guillermo, like his predecessors, is selfish, but his need to be a vampire also spans past just his fascination with them – he has some very complicated and seemingly romantic feelings towards his master, Nandor; as the series evolves, this relationship feels less like master and familiar and more like dysfunctional domestic relationship, one that is loving but still struggling to get it’s footing, or even get started. This is more than just a search for power, this is a search for belonging and love.
As I stated earlier, Guillén is a natural talent and brings humanity to what could be a very unlikable version of Renfield. He is one of the most selfish and, considering that mind control no longer works on him, one of the most cunning. Guillermo is infinitely more grounded than Nandor, and while he often is empathetic to his master, he also has been shown to pull some strings to get Nandor to do what he wants. Sometimes, he disregards Nandor’s feelings and does things that he knows would hurt him (such as going to another vampire for the bite when Nandor continues to push off turning him into a vampire). Yet, audiences cannot help but to love Guillermo, to sympathize with how often he leaves just to come right back. Unlike other Renfields, Guillermo’s is a love story. And whether you have been in a chaotic relationship or you are romanticizing the complications of what it would be like to date a vampire, Guillermo is another version of Renfield that resonates with people in a new way; there is love here, affection and caring that other depictions do not have.
What really makes both of these characters stand out is their human approach to a character that otherwise doesn’t warrant much sympathy or connection. By switching up these narratives on this classic character, the possibilities for new vampire dynamics are endless. No longer just his lackey, Renfield can, and should, stand in his own right with his own agency, narrative, and abilities. These spins give something new to vampire lore and give people like me, who still sort of wish to join the ranks of the undead, something a little better to aspire to.