this movie TRIED to win me over....

... and failed.

I gotta give the director, writers, actors, producers, etc. credit for REALLY making an effort. They obviously had a blast MAKING this movie, and THOUGHT we'd have a blast WATCHING it, too. It's kind of like Terminator: Genisys in that regard.

Cage and Hoult really put 110% into this movie, with Cage making a hardcore attempt to channel Bela Lugosi on steroids, and Hoult trying to do a Hugh Grant type Victorian era gentleman (he seemed to be playing "What if Jonathan Harker became Dracula's slave?" rather than "What if sadistic blabbing lunatic Renfeld was still around in the 21st century?")

The movie DID manage to get a few mild chuckles out of me. I was also surprised it DID live up to its premise of being from Renfeld's POV, all the trailers and "buzz" made it sound like it would be a Nicholas Cage vehicle and the title character would be a glorified cameo.

But nope, it didn't work. I didn't connect with any of the "modern day" characters. Coming up with some gimmick where Renfeld (and everyone else) somehow gets "super powers" when they munch bugs was weird and didn't work (though I can see why they did it, trying to come up with some "kewl" twist with Renfeld's character trait). Constantly throwing in F-bombs just wasn't "funny" despite the movie assuming it was. The movie isn't nearly as edgy and "unique" as it seems to think it is by doing a dead on satire of "stereotypical" elements of Bram Stoker's Dracula novel/Universal Monster films (those films are a dime a dozen, and it can't touch the gold standard, Love at First Bite). Even the framing device of the character going to a twelve step program has been done better in countless movies, even as throwaway scenes in stuff like Wreck-It Ralph.

SO much effort was put into this. So little to show for it!