R.M. Renfield - in Other Media

In Other Media

Film adaptations of the novel, if they include Renfield, have a tendency to expand his role, making him a long-standing servant of the vampire Count, often depicting his mania as a result of falling under Dracula's influence, rather than as a pre-existing condition that made him vulnerable to it. Tod Browning's 1931 film, for example, conflates the character with that of Jonathan Harker, making Renfield (played by Dwight Frye) the real estate agent who is sent to Transylvania and falls under Dracula's (Bela Lugosi) power. The 1922 silent film Nosferatu presents Alexander Granach as a Renfield similar to that of the novel, but gives him the name Knock, and in a deviation from the novel, survives only to be caught and trapped in prison where he is unable to help Count Orlok, his master, escape the morning sunlight. Nosferatu also differs from the novel in making Knock the real estate agent who employs Harker. This deviation also appears in Nosferatu the Vampyre, the 1979 remake of the 1922 film. Here, Renfield (portrayed by artist-writer Roland Topor) escapes from the asylum after being committed for biting a cow and helps Dracula spread a plague in his town. Whether or not he is re-captured is unknown. In 1966 Hammer film Dracula: Prince of Darkness the character of Renfield played by Thorley Walters is renamed to Ludwig (because the film is set in German-speaking environment).

In Count Dracula, Klaus Kinski (who portrayed a Count Orlok-style Dracula in Nosferatu the Vampyre) played Renfield as mute. Kinski's own Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) has its own Renfield, actor Roland Topor, who, as in the original, is Jonathan Harker's employer who goes insane before Dracula arrives.

The BBC version of Count Dracula (1977), starring Louis Jourdan in the title role, includes Jack Shepherd as a sympathetic Renfield in a prominent role which highlights his relationship with Mina. The 1979 film Dracula, starring Frank Langella in the title role, has Tony Haygarth playing "Milo" Renfield as an unkempt workman who in enthralled by Dracula while he is unloading the boxes as Carfax. Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula suggests that Renfield (portrayed by Tom Waits) was Harker's predecessor as Count Dracula's agent in London; it is implied that this is the reason for his present madness.

George Hamilton's 1979 Love at First Bite features Arte Johnson as Renfield, who carries around a large array of creatures, including a boa constrictor, for nourishment.

Mel Brooks's 1995 parody Dracula: Dead and Loving It has Peter MacNicol in the role.

Renfield appears as the protagonist in a number of works that provide his backstory or retell the story from his viewpoint. The novels The Book of Renfield by Tim Lucas and Renfield: Slave of Dracula by Barbara Hambly are examples of this, as is Gary Reed's graphic novel Renfield: A Tale of Madness.

In John Marks' novel Fangland, Renfield is re-imagined into a wannabe artiste named Stimson Beevers who communicates with his master via email.

In Charlie Huston's series of novels which form the Joe Pitt Casebooks a 'Renfield' is a disparaging term for a person who likes to hang with or serve the infected vampyres.