I was pretty excited by the idea of this movie when it was first announced. Renfield is a bit like Rosencrantz and Guildernstern, a supporting character in great literature whose role as plot scaffolding never quite gets enough credit. I had no idea the final result would be such a straight action comedy, but there's still a lot to like about it.

It's built on a pretty good central idea – Dracula's longtime animalistic assistant Renfield – who's given eternal life to do his master's bidding by bringing him food and fending off enemies – is actually in a classically modern co-dependent relationship with the centuries-old vampire.

It's given fullest flight in a scene when the ghoulish antagonist (Cage) visits Renfield in the shiny but sort of pathetic apartment he's rented to try and assert his own identity, telling him how worthless he is, how he's nothing without his master and how nobody else will ever love him.

The juxtaposition between classic gothic horror character motifs and modern identity and relationship politics gives the story plenty of opportunities for clashing-of-worlds style comedy, and action sequences with lots of slapstick-style bloodletting do the rest.

We meet Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) when he becomes Dracula's familiar in the early 20th century, brokering the deal that will see him move to London. 100 years later, still eating the bugs which give him superior strength and fighting ability to protect his master, Renfield is tired of his existence.

He's now moved them both to a crummy, unkempt apartment building full of criminals and drug gangs in New Orleans to maintain cover, but after so long tricking people to their deaths for Dracula's eternal thirst and the latter's abusive treatment, he's had enough.

He finds his way to an abusive relationship program, intending to use it to track down everyone's rotten partners and give them to Dracula without feeling guilty about removing such scum from the world.

Instead, he finds it strikes a chord, describing exactly what he feels about his manipulative master. While he keeps trying to do Dracula's bidding without getting his own throat torn out, he starts to wonder if there isn't a better life waiting, especially with the acerbic cop (Awkwafina) investigating a crime family who gets caught up in the whole melee and becomes an ally.

It was good go see Ben Schwartz in another role – I haven't seen him in anything since playing Tom's slickly clueless friend Jean-Ralphio in Parks and Recreation. Cage doesn't have much to do but fills a smallish role with gusto, further cementing the current high peak of his status.

Even though a cleverer, more realistic (inasmuch as the violence and action aesthetic are taken straight from the style of a comic book - and not by accident, it was originally pitched as a comic) and maybe scarier movie might have been more memorable it's perfectly enjoyable while it's on. It's also a shame it didn't do better, not even making a third of its budget back.