Oh, God. Oh, my God.
Oh, hey.
Oh, matey.
Welcome to a special episode of cage match, colon around about way of meeting Nicholas cage.
We're recording, right? I'm not just talking to myself here.
Yeah, you're not shooting this into the void.
All right. Awesome. Yeah, this week and set.
Well, he does that sometimes we'll just be standing around.
I'll just I'll just go into this spiel.
Yeah, I should start doing that.
Somebody will enter the lion.
Oh, hey, welcome to cage match.
This special episode, we're talking about the film Renfield, which just came out.
And we just went and saw at the weirdest movie theater.
It's it's up there for weirdest I've ever been in.
It's I mean, this isn't a review of the movie theater.
It should be that we'll give them five minutes.
So no urinals.
I mean, there were that urinals, but now they're covered with trash bags.
Yeah, they're thoroughly backed up.
I don't think they're getting fixed anytime soon.
But most importantly, the entire thing was sort of loosely nautical themed.
Hence the ahoy. Yeah.
Yeah. Theaters were all peers.
We were in Pier three today. Yeah.
The entrance to the much like real appears, the toilets were terrifying.
Entrance was like from behind the screen.
That was great. Oh, yeah.
I'm glad I got in there before you guys,
so I could see you guys do the same weird double take that I did.
Yeah. And then I have to walk all the way in.
And then we watched the movie with five other people.
Yeah, I did like how the you know, it took them about seven minutes
to realize the house lights were still on instead of the gentle downgrade.
Instead of the dimmer switch, someone just like, I don't think this place
has a dimmer switch. Almost certainly.
I think they just retrofitted some fluorescence and put some LED lights
in there and they're just like, OK.
And then when the movie the lights did not come back on. Yeah.
Well, they were they were also like servicing people at the concession stand.
So those two guys can only do so much. It's true.
OK, well, Renfield.
Yeah. So I guess a fair warning, we might have some loose spoilers,
but we're not going to like go scene by scene or anything like that.
So just our initial thoughts and like our impressions of
this new Nicolas Cage film.
Slaps and fucks. I like it.
I loved it. It was awesome.
I thought it was a lot of fun.
It was really, really enjoyable.
And also the most creative violence I've seen since shoot them up.
Yeah, that's fair. No, the violence in this is nutty.
It's wacky. There's a lot of disarming.
There's yeah, there are several disarming scenes.
Very gruesome.
I would say if you've seen the trailers, you have the general idea
of the main beats of the story.
Yeah, the trailers really did kind of lay out
what you're going to get here pretty well.
There's no big surprises. I don't think.
I mean, ultimately, it's a movie about a breakup.
Yeah. Renfield, being the familiar of Dracula,
finds his their way into New Orleans
as they're finding a new home for Dracula.
And in an effort to bring him bodies,
meets up with a support group, uses their sad sob stories
to find victims, which solves their problems and his problems
as he takes out the people who abuse them.
And then things don't go well.
Yeah, runs afoul of some less than savory characters.
Hilarity ensues.
That's pretty much the movie.
That is kind of the entire thing. Great.
I knew we could do this in under 40 minutes.
I know we're good. We got five.
I think we call it cool. See you next week, everybody.
This is the easiest edit I'll have to do.
I'm going to cut five into three. Bye bye. Yeah.
So Nicholas Cage in this film,
I know he was saying that he considers this like a direct sequel to the original.
Yeah. Dracula.
Universal Studios Dracula, which actually I want to talk about this.
Nick, you watched that today.
Yeah, I watched it before we went out today. So I.
What are your thoughts on this being a direct sequel?
Well, OK, so first of all, I don't think I had ever seen
the 1930s Bella Lugosi Dracula film.
And first of all, it was great.
I highly recommend it.
It's a it's a quick hour and 15 minutes.
So if you're going to go out to go see Renfield, just slap this on beforehand.
And I don't think you're going to regret it.
It brings home a couple of jokes, especially when they do the recap of the movie.
Cap of like what's been going on.
It's really well put together the tie in between the two movies.
As far as like how does it work as a direct sequel?
I think it works well in the end of the 1931 film.
You could say there's ambiguity in the fate of Dracula.
Whatever happens, happens off screen.
So it's plausible that he survived
and continued with the help of his familiar Renfield.
Lugosi isn't unhinged, but he's, you know, for a film in the 30s,
he's got a very large presence.
His actions are pretty big.
They're not overwhelming, but it's something that I would write off as
the shit storm that Dracula like goes through
in constantly having people hunting him and what not.
You know, you could say that that has probably taken a mental toll on him,
despite being fairly immortal and fairly long lived at this point.
Well, and having to like live in less than savory conditions.
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah.
All the the running and the travelers taking a toll, as they say in the movie,
on the coffers of Dracula's former wealth.
And he looks like shit.
Yeah, he's had a rough go.
So finding it's always after somebody attacks them that they find their way
to a new town and have to set up all over again.
So he's recovering the makeup work on Nicolas Cage in this film
and his various forms, shall we say, was gross and awesome.
Yeah. Oh, the makeup in this was really well done.
The visual effects were well put together.
The prosthetics were good.
So how do we think our boy, Nick Cage did?
Oh, I think he did pretty well.
It was it was an invigorating performance.
Like he really had a lot of energy.
Everything just kind of moved really well.
It looked like he was having a really good time.
He hands it up something fierce and it's just peak cage.
Yeah. Everything he's doing is so big, but it's not outside of the world of the movie.
Like it fits for how everybody else just sort of reacts to things.
There's a tone to this movie that his performance just slides right into.
And it's just complimented so well by Nick Holt and Awkwafina.
I mean, it's a tight cast.
Yeah. Cage was great.
But everyone else, this whole supporting cast, I mean,
it's really more of a Nicholas Holt film.
Yeah. Nicholas Cage.
Awkwafina and Ben Schwartz.
Yeah. You're never not going to be John Raffaele.
Oh, no. He I didn't notice his car in the beginning.
I didn't notice till the end that it has like the wolf symbol.
Oh, yeah. Snorting a line of coke.
Yeah, that was pretty awesome.
Beautiful. Why wouldn't it?
I know I want to I want to rent this at some point
and actually like freeze frame some of his tattoos.
Yeah. No, those must be shitty.
Oh, sure. I want to see.
I want to get the DVD and like watch bonus features
because the end credits have a lot of like still frames of stuff
that's not in the movie.
And I want to see those scenes.
Yeah. Like there's a dance number at one point.
They definitely had a really good time collecting B roll in the credits.
And I'm sure just on on set and stuff.
It must have been a lot of fun.
It looked like these actors had a lot of fun making this movie.
And goes to the clip.
Yeah, it's an hour thirty three.
Yeah. And it just it moves. It's fun.
I really have really no major complaints about it.
No, I mean, maybe one or two lines come off occasionally
or like a a joke doesn't land.
But those are mostly ones that you've seen in the trailers.
Yeah. So well, sometimes stuff like that.
It helps if you see it in a full movie theater,
because sometimes a chuckle from somewhere can kind of trigger
that reaction where some of those might have hit
if we weren't with just five other random people.
Yeah. I didn't know. Yeah, that's fair.
And they don't seem to like laughing with me.
No, they didn't laugh at almost anything. Yeah.
Some people don't like fun.
Yeah. Well, this movie is not for them.
Yeah, because this movie is fun.
But I'm glad they gave their money to it. Yeah.
Because this movie really does need a little bit of a boost.
Yeah. One thing to note, it did have a very poor opening weekend
coming out against some real strong movies with Mario.
John Wick for John Wick for and the Pope's Exorcist.
Oh, that's right. So yeah, it's a competition in a hard space right now.
Yeah, it's hard.
I'm sure releasing a movie like a monster feature in April.
I know October is also pretty stacked for Universal.
So they've got some movies that they definitely don't want this to compete with.
But unfortunately, this turned out to be not the best weekend
to try to release something like this on such a wide scale.
It had like a what I say, thirty three hundred theater release. Yeah.
So fairly large release.
Didn't quite pull enough people away from Mario.
And I mean, if you're on the fence of watching it, definitely go watch it.
Oh, it's a blast.
Do a double feature. Watch John Wick afterwards. Yeah.
Just get all your violence out now.
And then you'll never be have violent thoughts again. Yeah.
I had I had a question about speaking of violence.
Nicholas Holt's character gains Dracula's powers.
Yeah, to a degree.
Being a bug.
But I thought it was special bugs.
And it's just bugs.
But yeah, and that goes back even like it's shown in the 30s movie to true.
Yeah, interesting.
So and it's so fun because like all the like bugs and stuff
in the old movie are just like little plastic things
that you can see being like pulled on like a piece of monofilament or something.
Like legs don't move.
They just kind of move across.
Or like when Bella Lugosi would turn into a bat
and he'd be like flying up to Mina's room
and he'd just be like flying outside the door
and he'd just be flapping his wings and flying in place right at the threshold.
More great physical comedy from this podcast.
Uh huh. So good. And thank you, Sean.
They could hear the flapping. Yeah.
So yeah, it's it's an established trait for Renfield.
No, not special bugs.
No, just bugs. Just bugs.
In the original, Renfield is committed to a sanitarium
because he's kind of wackadoodle once he gets to London.
And the guy who like the main orderly or whatever
just calls him Mr. Flyator.
Like the the tone of the movies is also kind of shockingly close
in the amount of humor that's worked into the horror.
So that's interesting.
I mean, it's kind of surprising thinking about a movie that's
fucking 90 years old.
Yeah. Still being able to be kind of relevant and matching in tone.
Yeah. I mean, it was just I'm really glad I back to back it.
And it was a fun experience.
I'm kind of jealous. I wish I would have done that today.
Yeah. I think that would have really painted a bigger picture for me.
Good cage. Good movie.
I'm inclined to say yes.
I think it was a good performance from Nick Cage.
And if you're looking for an adult comedy,
then this is a really fun movie.
It's not going to win awards.
I mean, there's a reason this isn't getting a release right before Oscar season.
It's just not that movie.
But it's not going to get a Razzie.
So it's right in the middle.
It's it's fun. It's a it's a good romp.
I don't think anybody would regret seeing it now.
And it has some. Unless they just hate Nick Cage. Right.
Sorry. I do think it has some great.
And why are you listening to our podcast?
Don't listen to us.
Fuck you, Bert. Get out of here.
I think it has some great cage lines, too.
I mean, we don't have quotes pulled up or anything,
but like I really was amused by a lot of the shit that he said.
And the way he delivers his lines is really excellent.
Yeah. The way he's able to swap back and forth in his delivery
in like that manipulative way to anger and like unfettered rage.
It's a really, really good performance.
And I'm wondering in the screenwriting process
if they'd always thought Nick Cage,
because it seems so perfect for him.
Physically, I think Nick Cage and Nick Holt match well
with the original actors of Bella Lugosi and Dwight.
For playing, you know, an ancient dead guy, this is the most alive.
I feel we've seen Nick Cage in recent films.
Well, he definitely has, you know, talked about being inspired by Lugosi
and, you know, creature features and all that kind of stuff.
Oh, he's always loved like, yeah, that era of filmmaking.
And I mean, going back to Vampire's Kiss,
him talking about, you know, trying to recreate a silent movie monster
in a talkie. Mm hmm.
If you like shit storms, this movie.
Yeah, this movie doesn't let up.
It's 100% roller coaster.
If that roller coaster is loops, I was going to say that roller
that roller coaster is just the down bits,
not down and bad, just the fun fast bits. Yeah.
I also don't know what metaphors are.
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. Any closing thoughts?
If you have the time, please go see it in theaters.
Because something like this is really awesome.
And I think Jumpstart Universal's plans for like a universal monster
universe, like cinematic universe that they've talked about in the past
would be really cool.
And yet, like modern adaptations or modern follow ups of like classic
mummy stories or swamp creature stories.
Frankenstein's monster again.
We need this movie to do well so we can maybe get a remake of Monster Squad
with Nicolas Cage.
Oh, that would be fucking awesome.
That would be awesome.
So do yourself a favor.
Find an hour and a half this week to have fun.
Yeah. I'm you know, I'm looking at my calendar and I think April 20th.
It's right around the corner.
That sounds like a great day to just get with some friends,
have a sandwich and go.
John, that's fucking great movie.
Great action. Great comedy.
Some of the best cage we've seen in a long time. Go see it.
It was fresh. Yep.
Fun flick. 10 out of 10 blood bags.
Oh, also, I'm Sean.
I'm here with my co-host Nick and our producer Peter.
Hello. And that was cage match, everybody.
Bye bye. Bye bye.
I was going to try to pull up Nosferatu today, too,
just to see if the performance, the physical performance
had a lot of similarities.
But just on my right, like memory of the movie and then watching this,
I don't think that was as relevant.
So this sentence can just get cut. Great.
Fucking worthless statement.
Cut it out.
Unlike that time, I just fucking blasted ass while saying shit storm.
We're keeping that in.