Renfield is Dracula’s loyal servant in Bram Stoker’s original novel, Dracula. Just as the titular vampire has been adapted for the big screen countless times over the years, so too has his deranged devotee, by a number of different actors in countries around the world.
Most recently, Nicholas Hoult brings the character to life in a movie that finally puts Renfield in the spotlight opposite Nicolas Cage's Dracula. The creative forces behind each version of the Prince of Darkness give him different powers and a new origin in each new film, and the same can be said of Renfield, though he has never had abilities like this before.
1 Alexander Granach - 'Nosferatu' (1922)
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror is technically the first adaptation of Stoker's 1897 novel, but it was never approved by the author's estate, which actually won a lawsuit against the film. Nonetheless, it has come to be regarded as hugely influential in the horror genre. The names of the characters and other details were changed in an attempt to avoid copyright infringement, so the part of Renfield is filled by a character called Knock, played by Alexander Granach.
In contrast to the Renfield of the novel, who is a psychiatric patient under Dracula's thrall, Knock is the employer of Thomas Hutter (Nosferatu's stand-in for Johnathan Harker), who sends him to Transylvania to meet with the Count in the first place. Granach, a Jewish actor, fled Europe ahead of World War II and moved to Hollywood where he went on to feature in a number of films.
2 Dwight Frye - 'Dracula' (1931 English language version)
Starring the great Bela Lugosi, Dracula is one of Universal's top classic monster movies. Aside from Nosferatu, it is undoubtedly the most influential Dracula adaptation, Lugosi's portrayal of Dracula launched the character to iconic status and established the classic vampire image as it is known today. In parallel, Dwight Frye's performance as Renfield is perhaps the best known of all, in part for his low, unsettling laugh.
In this version, it is Renfield, not Harker, who is first sent to Transylvania to rendezvous with Dracula and confirm his purchase of Carfax Abbey in England. He is hypnotized and attacked and subsequently goes mad as he sails back to England with his master. This Renfield is more faithful to the novel, obsessed with eating flies and spiders in his cell to absorb their life essence. But his being the first to encounter Dracula is an addition made to better explain the cause of his madness.
3 Pablo Álvarez Rubio - 'Dracula' (1931 Spanish language version)
When the crew of Dracula wrapped up for the day, a night crew would come in and use the same sets and equipment to film another version in Spanish. This was a common practice for studios in the early days of sound film. The Spanish version features Pablo Álvarez Rubio as Renfield, who some audiences argue outshines Dwight Frye.
Rubio's Renfield is more emotional and unhinged, and his own take on the maniacal laugh is more in line with what one might expect from Dracula's madman. This version sees Renfield drugged rather than hypnotized and strangled to death rather than thrown down a staircase, as it happened in the English language version. The movie was thought lost until an incomplete copy was found in the '70s. A complete copy was found in Cuba shortly after.
4 Klaus Kinski - 'Count Dracula' (1970)
Klaus Kinski would later go on to play Dracula himself in 1979's Nosferatu the Vampyre, but in 1970 he played R. M. Renfield, a patient of the same clinic in which Johnathan Harker finds himself after escaping Count Dracula's castle. Dracula is played here by Christopher Lee, who would play Dracula nine times over the course of his career.
Kinski plays Renfield as mute, traumatized by an experience near Castle Dracula in Transylvania when his young daughter died. He lacked the iconic laugh, but this version was still obsessed with eating insects to add their life force to his own.
5 Tony Haygarth - 'Dracula' (1979)
One of three different Dracula movies released in 1979, Dracula (1979) is regarded as one of the best Dracula adaptations and was intended to be a more romantic story, though still full of action and fright. Tony Hagarth's portrayal of Renfield falls on the action and fright side of that split.
While we don't see him eating bugs in his cell, he does tell a spider that he would feed it to a kitten if only he had one, which is in line with the original Renfield's scheme of feeding small animals to progressively larger ones before eventually eating it himself in order to accrue life force more efficiently. Hagarth's Renfield is a dock worker who falls under Dracula's spell as he unloads cargo from The Count's ship. A bit rugged and unkempt, this Renfield meets his end at the hands of his master, who breaks his neck for warning their adversaries of Dracula's power.
6 Roland Topor - 'Nosferatu the Vampyre' (1979)
Directed by Werner Herzog, Nosferatu the Vampyre spotlights Klaus Kinski in the titular role. His own Renfield is played by Roland Topor, who, as in the 1922 film off which this one is based, is Harker's boss. Like Nosferatu, this version is also set in Germany, unlike the novel, which takes place in England.
Unlike the 1922 Renfield, Topor's Renfield is reduced to a giggling madman and sent to a mental hospital after biting a cow. Renfield plays a smaller role in this film, which strays slightly from the plot of both Nosferatu and Stoker's Dracula, but was well-received by critics and contains a twist ending. It was also shot in two versions: one in which the actors speak in English, and one in which they speak German.
7 Tom Waits - 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' (1992)
Francis Ford Coppola directed another successful adaptation of Stoker's novel. Despite the film's title, it diverges significantly from the source material, especially in inventing the origin of Dracula's powers. This version of Renfield gives up Dracula as a client to Keanu Reeves's Johnathan Harker.
Tom Waits as Renfield has already gone insane at the beginning of the film, and joins the ranks of Renfields killed by Dracula for warning the protagonists of his arrival. In this case, he alerts Mina, Harker's fiancée who Dracula believes to be the reincarnation of his own late wife. Waits's Renfield is driven not by kindness, but by jealousy. He wants his master to make him immortal, but Dracula plans to bite Mina instead.
8 Peter MacNicol - 'Dracula: Dead and Loving It' (1995)
This spoof was directed by Mel Brooks and follows the plot of Dracula. As such, Thomas Renfield, played by Peter MacNicol, travels to Transylvania to confirm Dracula's purchase of Carfax Abbey. Dracula casts a spell on him causing him to go mad, and when the two of them return to England, Renfield is institutionalized after a humorous scene in which he denies that he is eating bugs.
This Renfield attempts to be more useful to his master, but fails to remove the garlic from the bedroom of Dracula's target. He even attends a ball with his master, which proves to be a ploy to determine who is the vampire. Once he is found out, Dracula flees with Mina, but his pursuers deduce that Renfield is his servant and force him to give up The Count's location. In the end, the bumbling Renfield is the one to accidentally kill his own master.
9 Giovanni Franzoni - 'Dracula 3D' (2012)
This Italian-Spanish-French co-production doesn't worry about sticking too close to the novel's plot. It introduces a new character called Tania and has Harker working for Dracula as a librarian instead of a solicitor. Dracula releases Renfield from his cell, and he becomes a friend and confidant to Tania, who is turned into a vampire at the start of the movie.
Renfield later defends Tania from men trying to kill her, including her ex-lover, whom he scolds for leaving her alone and allowing her to be bitten in the first place. Later in the film he also comforts Tania when she is upset that Dracula is more interested in Mina than in her. Finally, Renfield is slain by Van Helsing when he attacks the vampire hunter in a rage after witnessing him kill Tania.
10 Nicholas Hoult - 'Renfield' (2023)
Nicholas Hoult stars as Renfield in the latest entry among Dracula adaptations, Renfield. The movie, set in modern day, sees a much more active Renfield who has been delivering victims to Dracula for ninety years in exchange for eternal youth and super strength. After a close call with some vampire hunters, the pair moves from England to New Orleans to lie low.
There, Renfield infiltrates a self-help group for people in abusive relationships in order to find new victims for Dracula who he won't feel guilty about sacrificing. But when he begins to take their message to heart, he ends up in a face off with his boss. Hoult as Renfield delivers a more dynamic and sympathetic character than any Renfield before him.
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