OneTrick

There’s nothing wrong with any movie being marketed and sold on the back of one aspect above all else, and in the case of Chris McKay’s Renfield, it was the promise of seeing the inimitable Nicolas Cage literally sinking his teeth into the role of Dracula. The casting was so inspired that it bordered on genius, and it’s not a surprise to discover upon watching the film that the Academy Award winner knocks it out of the park with a deliciously hammy turn that’s indebted to the classic portrayals of the iconic bloodsucker…

via Universal There’s nothing inherently wrong with selling a movie almost entirely on the back of one aspect above all else, but it definitely helps if the rest of the moving parts are strong enough to support it. Unfortunately for Renfield, though, the heavily-hyped performance of Nicolas Cage as Dracula was about the only thing that delivered the goods. Director Chris McKay had done a sterling job of ramping up the hype in the buildup to the horror comedy’s release, with the trailers promising a…

There’s barely a horror franchise in existence that hasn’t caved to the law of diminishing returns, but despite being a one-trick pony that was obligated to lean on a single gimmick from the very start, Final Destination proved to be a surprisingly consistent set of supernatural chillers. The basic premise of being unable to escape death is a doozy, and opened the door to a variety of ingenious and inventive kills that hammered home the central conceit of fate being inevitable. Along the way, the second installment…