If there was any doubt that “Renfield” would honor the unique Common “Dracula” from 1931, this TV spot dispels it, with Cage and Hoult showing in a shot-for-shot re-enactment of scenes from the basic movie. Moreover, the manufacturing of the movie was introduced by an image of the film’s slate bearing a brand that’s intentionally harking back to the ’31 movie’s advertising.
McKay elaborated on his paying tribute to Browning’s movie throughout a current interview with Nightmare on Movie Road, stating that Dwight Frye’s Renfield “is my favourite and Nic Hoult’s favourite Renfield — we took quite a lot of inspiration from that.” McKay additionally talked about how “There’s notes of ‘Swan Lake’ in our rating,” referencing the truth that a variety from Tchaikovsky’s 1877 ballet was used because the opening credit score music for the 1931 “Dracula,” and used once more for 1932’s “The Mummy” and “Murders within the Rue Morgue.”
Arguably the subsequent most well-known Dracula after Bela Lugosi is Christopher Lee, whose efficiency in Hammer Movies’ 1958 “Dracula” (identified on these shores as “Horror of Dracula”) is simply as iconic, particularly to star Cage. McKay defined how that movie helped the opening of his film:
“Cage was actually influenced by Christopher Lee and ‘Horror of Dracula’ […] We took quite a lot of inspiration from that, primarily within the opening of the film. I needed the opening of our film to really feel just like the third act of someone else’s Dracula film. So we took that finish scene from ‘Horror of Dracula’ […] Christopher Lee will get blasted by the daylight and turns right into a melted puppet. […] We did an analogous scene the place the curtain falls and Cage is hit by the daylight, and we did slightly puppet gag.”