Here you can find my thoughts on whatever films I happen to watch. Some are part of a specific grouping, like a specific topic I'm interested in or set of related films. If you want to search for reviews from a specific group, use ctrl + f and search using the group tag.

Current Groupings

Kink [G01]

| Films that feature kink as a main plot point or theme.

The Quest for the Best Asylum Movie [G02]

| Asylum Productions is a studio that, without fail, puts out mockbusters and wholesale ripoffs of then-popular and new films. Their writing is garbage, as is most of the acting and actual filmmaking. We watch this films as a kind of penance-- a ritual of flagellation that will allow ourselves a wider perspective on films (and to pray the next film we watch, Asylum or no, is good). Think some modern films are of poor quality or lacklustre? Try sitting through some of these.

The Pickle Jar [G03]

| This group has nothing to do with culinary delicacies (mostly), instead referring to any movie released before 2000. In essence, the films in The Pickle Jar have begun to show their age in fascinating ways. Whether it be in their ideologies, cinematography, wardobes, or makeup, there's always something special to be seen in the Jar. Unfortunately, not every pickle in the Jar are as juicy and crunchy as we'd all like. Some films whose age shows in the form of a detestation or malice towards people of colour, women, or queers end up in the Jar too, only as squishy and gross and deeply uncomfortable.

Rubber Room Cinema [G04]

| As the title may suggest, this group refers to films that are set in asylums or otherwise make mental illness a primary plot point. It is not enough for one of the characters to feature some illness without it being entirely important-- the film must actually be trying to make some statement regarding mental illness. Note that most films in this category will be viewed from an anti-psych perspective; I do not worship the psychiatric system nor could anything convince me to.

Treasured Hand-Me-Downs [G05]

| This group features movies that I absolutely love and would recommend to anyone. They aren't all perfect-- no film is or should be-- but these are all films I would not hesitate to show someone at the drop of a hat.

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I don't review every film I watch, nor is every review always in detail. If you want to see more than what is featured here, feel free to have a look at my → Letterboxd. Otherwise, please enjoy.

Groups - None [W.I.P.]
Genres - Comedy | Fantasy | Horror (barely)
Rating - 0/10
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In my mind I feel as though I have written thousands of variations of this review. To this day this film haunts me, and I fear it shall be so for the rest of my life. It does not sit under my skin as though it has anything thought-provoking or meaningful to say, no, it writhes like a petulant worm and reminds me of the endless toil of being a fan of deeply-misunderstood side characters. Outside of this review, it feels like I have written about this movie (I struggle to call it a film) to death. My loved ones have been subjected to my raving ad nauseum about this waste of space from the moment it came out and I feel sick just thinking about having to write about it again.

This review is different from my other ones, though. It is neither a twenty-one page thesis fueled entirely by spite and hatred nor is it a tired and scatter-brained set of ramblings on Letterboxd. Instead, now that I have not had to think about this movie existing for over a year, I am far more level-headed. I still refuse to grant it any mercy, but I (hopefully) will not devolve into screaming and driving a haymaker into the most solid object near to me.

Renfield is, in all respects, a character who is very near and dear to my heart. He holds so much complexity and nuance for how little pagetime Stoker actually gives him in the original novel and his themes are frankly form-fitted exactly for me. As a small side note, there are a variety of novels that seek to fill the gaps of Renfield's life, but the only one I can earnestly recommend is Tim Lucas' The Book of Renfield: A Gospel of Dracula. I could go on a tirade about how the book makes me feel and how it has inspired me, but that's a review for a different day.

To return to the point, I have a vested interest in Renfield as a character. To give me some measure of credibility on the topic, I can boast about having seen just about every available Dracula adaptation that actually features Renfield. Unfortunately, this does include the porn spoof, Dracula Sucks. Renfield actually has quite the history of not being featured in Dracula adaptations despite his importance. Due to the length of the novel and the complexities of the epistolary format, you will oftentimes see characters like Renfield, Quincy, or Arthur being either surgically removed from the plot or merged into one another (or another main character, in the case of Renfield and Jonathan Harker) to create a kind of side character homonculus.

The adaptations that do feature Renfield-- and sometimes, if you're really lucky, Quincy-- do so to an intensely varying degree. I am sure most people are aware of Dwight Frye's portrayal of Renfield in Dracula (1931), considering most later performances of the character either directly copy him or wear the influence on their sleeves. In fact, in my quest to watch every adaptation featuring him in search of the various ways in which he's portrayed, it dawned on me about halfway through that over half of the performances were just trying to be the next Dwight Frye. Not to say it is entirely a bad thing to be inspired by him-- his portrayal is one of my favorites-- but I am sure we could afford to be a little more original, no?

Before I talk about the actual movie at hand, I feel as though I need to give some context as to what a more original Renfield depiction can look like. To this end, I will provide two stark examples before giving any regards to Renfield (2023).

In the big '06, we were blessed with the Québécois musical Dracula - Entre l'amour et la mort, which reimagined the world as a leather-clad, grungy post-Y2K wasteland. Unfortuntely, it also reimagined Dracula himself as a tragic lover, but the myriad of issues with his interpretation are not the point here. In this darling musical, Renfield is the assistant photographer to Jonathan Harker, who is a journalist investigating a mysterious plague that is leaving the citizens of Romania drained of blood. Funny. This plot is not all that important, though, Renfield is the apple of our eye.