#psycological

It leaves a connection with the viewer and Renfield- a want for him to stay safe and happy, away from Dracula.

The events of the story play out, with Rebecca’s (Awkwafina) story being especially fleshed out.

Later, Dracula learns of Renfield’s disobeyment.

He arrives at Renfield’s apartment, acting nonchalant and almost kind. Renfield lies to him, saying that he had retrieved many bodies to feed Dracula. Of course, due to previous information and context clues, it was expected that Dracula knew the real actions Renfield had taken.

What was a silly, comedic, yet slightly anxiety-inducing moment turned to pure dread. Dracula becomes increasingly angered, to which Renfield attempts to stand up to him.

This is one of the most serious parts of the underlying message.

Many people in toxic/co-dependent relationships take a long time to realise their situation, and even longer to stand up to their abuser. This is typically due to the extreme emotional manipulation the other may use.

While it did take Renfield quite a while to fully realise and come to terms with his situation (a few centuries at least), he is portrayed to almost instantly stand up to Dracula- which is fantastic! To be that prepared to stand up to someone like that is very hard. 

Which is why the viewer’s heart breaks when Renfield eventually closes in on himself. When he is cornered, and clearly afraid.

This can be seen as him being afraid of a vampire with God-like powers- which does make sense.

But it hits even harder when you see it as just Renfield and Dracula; how Renfield is so fearful of what Dracula could do, despite Renfield’s vampire-like powers. He could defend himself.

So why does he nearly break down?

People who are/have been in abusive relationships like this, between friends, partners, positions of power, etc. can understand this reaction.

You get scared of what the other is going to do.

When viewing this scene of Renfield and Dracula through a lens of a realistic toxic relationship, instead of one between a human and vampire, you feel Renfield’s experience differently.

Obviously, he is scared due to Dracula’s vampiristic abilities. But, there’s something else there. Earlier, he was attacked, nearly killed, due to making a mistake with the bodies he brought to Dracula. Then, he was healed.

This brings us to another part of the toxic relationship.

Renfield is constantly revived/healed by Dracula. Yes, Renfield does technically do this for Dracula as well, but much less, and in different circumstances.

And, judging by the previous scene where Renfield’s scar was reopened by Dracula, then healed, a significant amount of these injuries followed by healing could be caused by Dracula himself.

This is one of the main building blocks of a co-dependent relationship. What people in co-dependent relationships are often manipulated into believing are statements similar to this: “I am keeping you safe. I am keeping you alive. I am helping you. You cannot survive without me. You will not survive without me. You need me.”

Through this action, Dracula is essentially telling Renfield that he needs him. That Renfield would die without Dracula.

This is reinforced when Dracula directly says this to Renfield.

The previous time Dracula was ‘killed’, Renfield was being told by the Church that he would be free from Dracula, saved.

To this, Dracula instead implanted the thought that Renfield would be killed by the Church, that he wouldn’t survive. Not without Dracula.

This co-dependency built on emotional manipulation is what toxic relationships thrive on. Renfield feels he cannot leave because Dracula is the one keeping him alive. 

So, bring this back to the scene where Renfield first stands up to Dracula. All the previous events of pain, of manipulation, slowly being stacked back onto him as Dracula continues his angered yelling. 

The scene gets significantly harder to watch, as time goes on. It begins with Dracula first having an outburst towards Renfield, then consistently berating him. 

I have yet to watch the original movie (no idea where to find it), so I have no clue whether or not the claims made by Dracula about Renfield’s greed/abandonment of his family is true, but if they are not, Dracula is also gaslighting him- a commonly used form of manipulation, especially in co-dependent relationships.

Renfield makes an effort to stand up to Dracula, to stop him, to which Dracula laughs at his efforts, then tells him that he isn’t worthy of love- another way for people to keep a hold on their victims- slowly backing him into a both literal and metaphorical corner. 

He threatens others that Renfield is in contact with. Keeping victims away from other outside people is a common practice for abusers to keep a hold on them as well.

After Dracula figures out who he needs to kill, he throws Renfield’s book at him, before disappearing. After Renfield is hit, he goes into a really defensive position, trying to shield himself from other possible attacks. He is clearly surprised when Dracula is gone instead, which implies that this may be common, and that Dracula suddenly disappearing is not the usual.

He realises, almost instantly after glancing at the logo on his book, that Dracula was going to kill his friends.

The carnage that ensues after is, obviously, terrifying for Renfield.

However, after Dracula confirms that after what Renfield did, he would be destroying the entirety of the human race, just because Renfield wanted to be a part of it again, Renfield is left on the edge of a panic attack- just sitting there, holding the meeting leader’s hand, despite him being a corpse.

At the scene of the crime, he goes with the police with no attempt at escaping their grasp despite him being framed, which matters especially since his friend was the one to find him there. His face throughout the scenes prominently don a solemn, given up look.

Rebecca is cornered after putting Renfield in the car, by both corrupt policemen, and the crime family who is linked to their corruption.

This movie has a significant part of its story driven by the town having a severely corrupt police force- most people dislike the cops in this movie, and I completely agree. However, they can't really be removed from the story, as they are important to show the severe corruption. I feel a better course of action would be to have Rebecca's character stop being a cop by the end of the movie, but that is just my opinion.

Corruption is like this in real life, and it affects many people and places. While I am most definitely not the person to talk about it, the movie’s plot including the way government corruption works and how anyone in power can go mad with it soon enough, actually helped the story- especially Rebecca’s backstory, which we will get into later.

Later on, after Rebecca and Renfield go to the café to meet up with Rebecca’s sister, Renfield talks about his experience.

He talks about the manipulation Dracula uses to get people under his thumb, and Renfield’s (at that time) greed and desire for more power that got him into this situation.

Rebecca, understanding of this, talks to him about how life can throw you situations that are hard to manoeuvre around.

 After it is revealed that Rebecca’s sister has been captured, the two head to the Lobos’ house, to which a long fight ensues.

Rebecca reaches Dracula first, and he begins trying to manipulate her- it is hard to tell whether or not she is somewhat susceptible, but she definitely does not fall for it.

She had a plan. A plan to trick Dracula.

Now, whether or not Renfield was aware of it or not is also hard to tell, but judging by the way he is portrayed, it appears to be he was unaware.

Instead of overly yelling for her to not fall for it, it almost feels like he’s come to terms with it. Like he knows that she can’t say no. This would make sense, after all; he fell into Dracula’s trap the same way.

And as Rebecca is embraced in Dracula’s arms, Dracula stares at Renfield with a triumphant expression.

To Renfield, it’s over. Dracula won. She’s enveloped in Dracula’s lies too.

However, she turns off the blinds- burning Dracula and accidentally guiding the three of them to the torture room of the house.

Renfield is killed- or at least severely injured- by the bats Dracula turns into temporarily.

Rebecca is left to fight Dracula, and he drags her into the air after taunting her. She shoots him in the foot, causing his blood, which has reviving/healing powers, to revive Renfield. 

To which, he stops Dracula’s fangs with his own hands, drags him to the ground, to which Dracula appears behind him and puts him in a chokehold.

Renfield is (now physically) stuck in the same position he has always been in, controlled by Dracula.

However, now he has himself to guide him- his self-love, his strength.

Dracula asks “Do you know what you are?”, expecting Renfield to give in, to answer with what Dracula wants, to keep Renfield under his thumb.

Instead, Renfield gets out of the chokehold and pins Dracula to the ground, continuously punching his face in while repeating similar lines to that of the earlier scene where Dracula cornered Renfield- but this time, Renfield has all the power. He admits that he was the one to give his power to Dracula; it wasn’t taken from him. While Dracula overpowers him eventually, Dracula is caught in a protection circle laid down by Rebecca.

This is a parallel to the introduction sequence, where Dracula is saved from a protection circle by Renfield- instead, now he’s trapped in it thanks to the both of them.

The two completely destroy the physical body of Dracula, tossing the remains down the drain.

With that, now that Dracula is gone, he uses some of Dracula’s Blood to help Rebecca’s sister and revive his previously-mauled support group.

Finally, after centuries of confinement to Count Dracula, Robert Montague Renfield is free.

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So… how did Rebecca fare through all this?

Her character, upon the release of Renfield, was not entirely liked by most. Oftentimes, people thought her character was annoying and selfish, other times they disliked her being played by an actress who has been in many other movies and was thought of as annoying, once again.

I do not care about the personal strife between people who like/dislike Rebecca or the actress, Awkwafina, who plays her.

However, whether or not you like her character, she is rather nuanced and has trauma of her own, along with her (sadly very rarely seen) sister.

Rebecca is seen as a strong, smart policewoman with an ‘idgaf’ attitude towards most things and people. Despite this, she is given very small jobs within the district.

She is very angered at this (and the police’s corruption and ignorance when it comes to the Lobo family), and continuously calls the police out on their negative aspects.

Part of her anger, however, is due to the loss of her father, who worked as one of the best policemen and was murdered.

We are never entirely told the circumstances of her father’s death, however. It is implied that the police station did nothing about it, and that he was killed by the Lobo family after investigating some of their crimes. Rebecca is fully aware of this, as well as her sister.

While Rebecca is willing to face the corruption head-on, her sister tends to do so silently, being careful with her job.

The two bicker a lot, but it is shown that they care about each other a lot.

So when Rebecca’s sister is captured and then killed, it strikes a nerve.

She seems slightly less careful while fighting the Lobo family (though she wasn’t very careful before), while also very calculative- more than she had shown previously.

So when she talks to Dracula about reviving her sister, both Renfield and the audience feel that she actually will do it.

She doesn’t join him. It’s a shock to most, especially due to her losing an important family figure at such a young age and only having one other person, who at that point, was on the brink of death/already dead.

For her to take that risk so they could take down Dracula is amazing, especially since her character was shown to care about family first, everything else second.