I received my copy of Renfield the Undead from Amazon.com, and was super excited to finally see this movie I'd been hearing about for years! I followed all the coverage on Dreadcentral, and also other movies done by the special effects makeup artists from facades fx. This movie was the creation of facades artist Phil Nichols, who wrote, produced, created the special effects and creatures for, as well as taking on the lead role of Renfield, himself. An ambitious thing to do. But it paid off, in my opinion.
I am a big fan of other FX men turned film makers, John Carl Beachler ("TROLL") Tom Savini ("Night of the Living Dead"), Greg Nicotero ("Walking Dead"). Phil Nichols seems to have taken a page from these guys' book, and created a really bad ass vampire comic book universe steeped in Bram Stoker's Dracula story.
As a special effects artist, Phil Nichols work is bad ass!!!!! (It's the only thing that salvaged Boggy Creek!) But as an actor... WOW! Who knew? Man this guy can act! He has the same kind of presence as The late Great Vincent Price, or... even better: Robert Englund (THE REAL FREDDY! Now and forever!). Renfield's madness and maniacal antics mixed with the awesome creature makeup and fx make this move a real feast for the old school Fx fans like me.
And here's something: normally I'm a zombie fan exclusively. I can't stand that slasher crap, masked killers with kitchen knives or big hammers and chainsaws. Yawn. ZOMBIES are the bomb. But, I have to give a nod to Renfield The Undead, for it's really unique style, and a lot of good fun. Dark humor abounds. And A very cool and creepy Dracula played by an actor named John Stephens. And I thought bringing the story into a modern day time was something new and wild. And the cops believing Renfield to be a serial killer, was a nice spin.
Now this movie does have its problems, like any low budget movie. I will say the beginning scene with the large breasts was really gross. And it seemed out of place with the rest of the story. No explanation as to why suddenly a vampire is biting a pregnant chick with big jugs. But there it was. And the actor who played the young twerp vampire sucked at an English accent. I could even hear some Texas twangy in there a few times. Who is that guy anyway?
the chick playing Mina (the bitch vampire leader) over acted a few times. I'm guessing this is all due to the director, who we all know from his suck-fest *S*I*C*K. Despite this, he somehow pulled off a half way decent job of telling this story.
I did like the scenes between Renfield and the city coroner, in Renfield's crypt where he reveals to her his story. How he became a vampire, and basically a flash back of the Dracula story. really cool, as it's back in Victorian times. There's even a lesbian kiss between Mina and Lucy, who according to the end of the movie, will be featured in the sequel.
This movie also features two scream babes from the Texas horror scene: Julin (Spirit Camp, Boggy Creek, Cherry Bomb) and Denise Williamson (Boggy Creek, School Girls from Outer Space, Spirit Camp), and possibly the creepiest Dracula ever.
Some of the cgi backgrounds are really video game looking, but again I attribute this to the low budget and not being able to afford good cgi artists. I can forgive that, because it seems like they spared no expense on the makeup effects! The vampire bites were big ugly gruesome wounds, and there is a KICK ASS decapitation and beheading scene where Renfield pulls a guy's head off with the spine hanging off of it... it's gross city, but so bad ass!
There was even a spider vampire! That was freaky cool! I'd never seen that before, and it was a cool surprise.
I liked this movie a lot, it surprised me how much I did like it. I'm glad I have it in my collection. I was disappointed by the lack of any special features other than the trailer. But maybe they will release a blue ray with behind the scenes special features sometime in the future.
My wish is that Phil Nichols will take on the zombie genre and make a cool zombie flick next! I would love to see what he would do as an Effects artist with zombies! Now that would really be bad ass!
I am a big fan of other FX men turned film makers, John Carl Beachler ("TROLL") Tom Savini ("Night of the Living Dead"), Greg Nicotero ("Walking Dead"). Phil Nichols seems to have taken a page from these guys' book, and created a really bad ass vampire comic book universe steeped in Bram Stoker's Dracula story.
As a special effects artist, Phil Nichols work is bad ass!!!!! (It's the only thing that salvaged Boggy Creek!) But as an actor... WOW! Who knew? Man this guy can act! He has the same kind of presence as The late Great Vincent Price, or... even better: Robert Englund (THE REAL FREDDY! Now and forever!). Renfield's madness and maniacal antics mixed with the awesome creature makeup and fx make this move a real feast for the old school Fx fans like me.
And here's something: normally I'm a zombie fan exclusively. I can't stand that slasher crap, masked killers with kitchen knives or big hammers and chainsaws. Yawn. ZOMBIES are the bomb. But, I have to give a nod to Renfield The Undead, for it's really unique style, and a lot of good fun. Dark humor abounds. And A very cool and creepy Dracula played by an actor named John Stephens. And I thought bringing the story into a modern day time was something new and wild. And the cops believing Renfield to be a serial killer, was a nice spin.
Now this movie does have its problems, like any low budget movie. I will say the beginning scene with the large breasts was really gross. And it seemed out of place with the rest of the story. No explanation as to why suddenly a vampire is biting a pregnant chick with big jugs. But there it was. And the actor who played the young twerp vampire sucked at an English accent. I could even hear some Texas twangy in there a few times. Who is that guy anyway?
the chick playing Mina (the bitch vampire leader) over acted a few times. I'm guessing this is all due to the director, who we all know from his suck-fest *S*I*C*K. Despite this, he somehow pulled off a half way decent job of telling this story.
I did like the scenes between Renfield and the city coroner, in Renfield's crypt where he reveals to her his story. How he became a vampire, and basically a flash back of the Dracula story. really cool, as it's back in Victorian times. There's even a lesbian kiss between Mina and Lucy, who according to the end of the movie, will be featured in the sequel.
This movie also features two scream babes from the Texas horror scene: Julin (Spirit Camp, Boggy Creek, Cherry Bomb) and Denise Williamson (Boggy Creek, School Girls from Outer Space, Spirit Camp), and possibly the creepiest Dracula ever.
Some of the cgi backgrounds are really video game looking, but again I attribute this to the low budget and not being able to afford good cgi artists. I can forgive that, because it seems like they spared no expense on the makeup effects! The vampire bites were big ugly gruesome wounds, and there is a KICK ASS decapitation and beheading scene where Renfield pulls a guy's head off with the spine hanging off of it... it's gross city, but so bad ass!
There was even a spider vampire! That was freaky cool! I'd never seen that before, and it was a cool surprise.
I liked this movie a lot, it surprised me how much I did like it. I'm glad I have it in my collection. I was disappointed by the lack of any special features other than the trailer. But maybe they will release a blue ray with behind the scenes special features sometime in the future.
My wish is that Phil Nichols will take on the zombie genre and make a cool zombie flick next! I would love to see what he would do as an Effects artist with zombies! Now that would really be bad ass!