Renfield
Encyclopedia
R. M. Renfield is a fictional character
in the novel Dracula
by Bram Stoker
.
He is an inmate at the lunatic asylum
overseen by Dr. John Seward
. He suffers from delusion
s which compel him to eat living creatures in the hope of obtaining their life-force for himself. He starts by consuming flies
, then develops a scheme of feeding the flies to spider
s, and the spiders to bird
s, in order to accumulate more and more life. When denied a cat
to accommodate the birds, he eats the birds himself. He also changes his ideas to accommodate Mina Harker
by quickly eating all flies and stating that it was an old habit. Doctor John Seward diagnoses him as a "zoophagous maniac".
During the course of the novel, he is revealed to be under the influence of Count Dracula
. The vampire
, whose abilities include control over animals such as rat
s, bat
s and spiders, comes to Renfield with an offer: if Renfield worships him, he will provide Renfield with an endless supply of food.
However, when confronted by Mina Harker, the object of Dracula's obsession, Renfield suffers an attack of conscience
and begs her to flee from his master's grasp. Renfield is consumed by his desire to keep Mina safe, begging Seward and the others to allow him to leave lest he feel guilty for her fate. When he is denied by Seward, Renfield tells the group of vampire hunters that "[he] warned them!" When Dracula returns that night, Renfield is again seized by his conscience. He remembers hearing that madmen have unnatural strength, and so attempts to fight Dracula. Renfield's strength leaves him after looking into Dracula's eyes, and Dracula throws him to the floor, severely injuring him.
The vampire hunters enter the room shortly afterward, and through an emergency surgery Van Helsing manages to prolong Renfield's life. Renfield tells his story to the vampire hunters who rush to help Mina, and leave him lying on the floor. He lives for only a few moments more before succumbing to his injuries, dying alone.
Film adaptation
s 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.
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 a 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 parody 1995 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 the video game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
, the player ends up in a cell after being beaten by the main antagonist. If the player saves, the person who saves the data (code named "Paramedic") will tell the main protagonist about Renfield being rescued from the prison by Dracula. This ends up giving the main protagonist a bad dream when play resumes and the main protagonist has nightmares about Dracula anytime he is brought up.
In The Dresden Files
, Renfields are people who have been enslaved to a Black Court vampire by raw, psychic
strength. Renfields are left with little control of their own minds, reduced to murderous, raving lunatics who die within a year or two of having their psyche ripped to shreds.
In the PC
game Dracula: Origin
, Renfield is the guardian of Godalming Manor, Dracula's castle in London. In order to succeed him, the player must throw him a bottle with flies inside. As he sees it, he starts eating them and Abraham Van Helsing
can go through the room.
In the Japan
ese manga
Blood Alone
, Renfields are humans who have tasted the blood of vampires and acquired vampiric powers such as immortality
. However they also lose their will and become fully devoted to the vampire whose blood they have tasted.
In the Canadian/German cult sci-fi/dark comedy television series Lexx
, the episode "Walpurgis Night" is a parody of Dracula, featuring Dracula as a British actor hired to "keep the peasants in line" by posing as a vampire. Renfield is depicted as a wild haired lunatic who eats flies and is enslaved by Vlad (a 6000 year old alien "divine executioner" and the real owner of the castle).
In the puzzle game Peggle
, Renfield is the name of a playable character, a pumpkin whose special ability is the "spooky ball."
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
in the novel Dracula
Dracula
Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
by Bram Stoker
Bram Stoker
Abraham "Bram" Stoker was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula...
.
In the novel
A description of Renfield from the novel:
R. M. Renfield, aetat 59. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength, morbidly excitable,
periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the
sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish,
a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men, caution is as
secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this point is,
when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal.
When duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only
accident or a series of accidents can balance it. — From Dr. John SewardJohn SewardJohn Seward, M.D. is a fictional character appearing in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula.-In the novel:Seward is the administrator of an insane asylum not far from Count Dracula's first English home, Carfax. Throughout the novel, Seward conducts ambitious interviews with one of his patients,...
's journal
He is an inmate at the lunatic asylum
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
overseen by Dr. John Seward
John Seward
John Seward, M.D. is a fictional character appearing in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula.-In the novel:Seward is the administrator of an insane asylum not far from Count Dracula's first English home, Carfax. Throughout the novel, Seward conducts ambitious interviews with one of his patients,...
. He suffers from delusion
Delusion
A delusion is a false belief held with absolute conviction despite superior evidence. Unlike hallucinations, delusions are always pathological...
s which compel him to eat living creatures in the hope of obtaining their life-force for himself. He starts by consuming flies
Fly
True flies are insects of the order Diptera . They possess a pair of wings on the mesothorax and a pair of halteres, derived from the hind wings, on the metathorax...
, then develops a scheme of feeding the flies to spider
Spider
Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms...
s, and the spiders to bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s, in order to accumulate more and more life. When denied a cat
Cat
The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
to accommodate the birds, he eats the birds himself. He also changes his ideas to accommodate Mina Harker
Mina Harker
Wilhelmina "Mina" Harker is a fictional character in Bram Stoker's 1897 horror novel Dracula.- In the novel :She begins the story as Miss Mina Murray, a young school mistress who is engaged to Jonathan Harker, and best friends with Lucy Westenra...
by quickly eating all flies and stating that it was an old habit. Doctor John Seward diagnoses him as a "zoophagous maniac".
During the course of the novel, he is revealed to be under the influence of Count Dracula
Count Dracula
Count Dracula is a fictional character, the titular antagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula and archetypal vampire. Some aspects of his character have been inspired by the 15th century Romanian general and Wallachian Prince Vlad III the Impaler...
. The vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
, whose abilities include control over animals such as rat
Rat
Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...
s, bat
Bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
s and spiders, comes to Renfield with an offer: if Renfield worships him, he will provide Renfield with an endless supply of food.
However, when confronted by Mina Harker, the object of Dracula's obsession, Renfield suffers an attack of conscience
Conscience
Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgement may derive from values or norms...
and begs her to flee from his master's grasp. Renfield is consumed by his desire to keep Mina safe, begging Seward and the others to allow him to leave lest he feel guilty for her fate. When he is denied by Seward, Renfield tells the group of vampire hunters that "[he] warned them!" When Dracula returns that night, Renfield is again seized by his conscience. He remembers hearing that madmen have unnatural strength, and so attempts to fight Dracula. Renfield's strength leaves him after looking into Dracula's eyes, and Dracula throws him to the floor, severely injuring him.
The vampire hunters enter the room shortly afterward, and through an emergency surgery Van Helsing manages to prolong Renfield's life. Renfield tells his story to the vampire hunters who rush to help Mina, and leave him lying on the floor. He lives for only a few moments more before succumbing to his injuries, dying alone.
In other media
Film adaptation
Film adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, plays, and even...
s 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
Mania
Mania, the presence of which is a criterion for certain psychiatric diagnoses, is a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/ or energy levels. In a sense, it is the opposite of depression...
as a result of falling under Dracula's influence, rather than as a pre-existing condition that made him vulnerable to it. Tod Browning
Tod Browning
Tod Browning was an American motion picture actor, director and screenwriter.Browning's career spanned the silent and talkie eras...
's 1931 film
Dracula (1931 film)
Dracula is a 1931 vampire-horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi as the title character. The film was produced by Universal and is based on the stage play of the same name by Hamilton Deane and John L...
, for example, conflates the character with that of Jonathan Harker
Jonathan Harker
Jonathan Harker is one of the main protagonists in the 1897 horror novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. His journey to Transylvania and encounter with Count Dracula and the Brides of Dracula at Castle Dracula constitutes the dramatic opening scenes in the novel and most of the film adaptations.-In the...
, making Renfield (played by Dwight Frye
Dwight Frye
Dwight Iliff Frye was an American stage and screen actor, noted for his appearances in the classic horror films Dracula , Frankenstein , The Invisible Man , and Bride of Frankenstein .-Early life and career:Frye was born in Salina, Kansas...
) the real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
agent who is sent to Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
and falls under Dracula's (Bela Lugosi
Béla Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...
) power. The 1922 silent film Nosferatu presents Alexander Granach
Alexander Granach
Alexander Granach was a popular German actor in the 1920s and 1930s.- Biography :Granach was born Jessaja Granach in Werbowitz to Jewish parents and rose to theatrical prominence at the Volksbühne in Berlin...
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
Count Orlok
Count Orlok is a fictional character portrayed by Max Schreck in the silent movie Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens...
, his master, escape the morning sunlight. Nosferatu also differs from the novel in making Knock the real estate agent who employs Harker.
In Count Dracula, Klaus Kinski
Klaus Kinski
Klaus Kinski, born Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski , was a German actor. He appeared in more than 130 films, and is perhaps best-remembered as a leading role actor in Werner Herzog films: Aguirre, the Wrath of God , Nosferatu the Vampyre , Woyzeck , Fitzcarraldo and Cobra Verde .-Early...
(who portrayed a Count Orlok
Count Orlok
Count Orlok is a fictional character portrayed by Max Schreck in the silent movie Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens...
-style Dracula in Nosferatu the Vampyre) played Renfield as mute
Muteness
Muteness or mutism is an inability to speak caused by a speech disorder. The term originates from the Latin word mutus, meaning "silent".-Causes:...
. 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
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
version of Count Dracula (1977), starring Louis Jourdan in the title role, includes Jack Shepherd
Jack Shepherd
Jack Shepherd is an English actor, playwright, theatre director, saxophone player and jazz pianist, who made his film debut in 1969 with All Neat in Black Stockings and The Virgin Soldiers. He is perhaps best known for his television roles, most notably the title role in detective drama Wycliffe...
as a sympathetic Renfield in a prominent role which highlights his relationship with Mina. The 1979 film Dracula, starring Frank Langella
Frank Langella
-Early life:Langella, an Italian American, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of Angelina and Frank A. Langella Sr., a business executive who was the president of the Bayonne Barrel and Drum Company. Langella attended Washington Elementary School and Bayonne High School in Bayonne...
in the title role, has Tony Haygarth
Tony Haygarth
Tony Haygarth is an English television, film and theatre actor.-Career:At the age of eighteen, Haygarth worked unsuccessfully as a lifeguard in Torquay, and also tried escapology, equally unsuccessfully...
playing "Milo" Renfield as a unkempt workman who in enthralled by Dracula while he is unloading the boxes as Carfax. Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
's 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula suggests that Renfield (portrayed by Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
) was Harker's predecessor as Count Dracula's agent in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
; it is implied that this is the reason for his present madness.
George Hamilton
George Hamilton (actor)
George Stevens Hamilton is an American film and television actor.-Early life:Hamilton was the youngest son of bandleader George "Spike" Hamilton and his first wife, Ann Stevens . He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and lived in Blytheville, Arkansas...
's 1979 Love at First Bite
Love At First Bite
Love at First Bite is a 1979 comedy horror film directed by Stan Dragoti and written by Robert Kaufman, using characters originally created by Bram Stoker. It stars George Hamilton, Susan Saint James, Richard Benjamin and Arte Johnson. The original music score was composed by Charles Bernstein...
features Arte Johnson
Arte Johnson
Arthur Stanton Eric "Arte" Johnson is an American comic actor. Johnson was a regular on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. His best-remembered "character" was that of a German soldier with the catchphrase: "Verrrry interesting, but...['stupid', 'not very funny', and other variations]".-Early life:Johnson...
as Renfield, who carries around a large array of creatures, including a boa constrictor, for nourishment.
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
's parody 1995 Dracula: Dead and Loving It
Dracula: Dead and Loving It
Dracula: Dead and Loving It is a 1995 comedy film starring Leslie Nielsen, directed by Mel Brooks. It is a parody of the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, and of some of the films it inspired....
has Peter MacNicol
Peter MacNicol
Peter MacNicol is an American actor. He may be best known in films for his roles of Janosz Poha in Ghostbusters II, Stingo in Sophie's Choice, Thomas Renfield in Dracula: Dead and Loving It and David Langley in Bean...
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
The Book of Renfield
The Book of Renfield: A Gospel of Dracula is a 2005 novel written by Tim Lucas. It is an unofficial prequel to Bram Stoker's Dracula. Like the original novel, Renfield is an epistolary novel written in series of written documents. It focuses mainly on Renfield, mostly remembered as a minor...
by Tim Lucas
Tim Lucas
Tim Lucas is a film critic, biographer, novelist, screenwriter, blogger, and publisher/editor of the video review magazine Video Watchdog.-Biography and early career:...
and Renfield: Slave of Dracula by Barbara Hambly
Barbara Hambly
Barbara Hambly is an award-winning and prolific American novelist and screenwriter within the genres of fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and historical fiction...
are examples of this, as is Gary Reed's graphic novel Renfield: A Tale Of Madness.
In John Marks' novel Fangland
Fangland
Fangland is a 2007 novel written by John Marks, a former producer for 60 Minutes. It is a reimagined story for the Dracula tale by Bram Stoker, setting in a post 9/11 New York. Like its predecessor, Fangland is written in parts as a epistolary novel through e-mails, diary entries and letters...
, Renfield is re-imagined into a wannabe artiste named Stimson Beevers who communicates with his master via email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
.
In the video game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
is an award-winning stealth action video game directed by Hideo Kojima. Snake Eater was developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and published by Konami for the PlayStation 2, and was released on November 17, 2004 in North America; December 16, 2004 in Japan; March 4, 2005 in Europe; and on...
, the player ends up in a cell after being beaten by the main antagonist. If the player saves, the person who saves the data (code named "Paramedic") will tell the main protagonist about Renfield being rescued from the prison by Dracula. This ends up giving the main protagonist a bad dream when play resumes and the main protagonist has nightmares about Dracula anytime he is brought up.
In The Dresden Files
The Dresden Files
The Dresden Files is a series of contemporary fantasy/mystery novels written by Jim Butcher.He provides a first person narrative of each story from the point of view of the main character, private investigator and wizard Harry Dresden, as he recounts investigations into supernatural disturbances in...
, Renfields are people who have been enslaved to a Black Court vampire by raw, psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
strength. Renfields are left with little control of their own minds, reduced to murderous, raving lunatics who die within a year or two of having their psyche ripped to shreds.
In the PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
game Dracula: Origin
Dracula: Origin
Dracula: Origin is a point-and-click adventure game for the PC based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Released by Frogwares in 2008, it follows the company's catalogue of action-adventure games such as the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series....
, Renfield is the guardian of Godalming Manor, Dracula's castle in London. In order to succeed him, the player must throw him a bottle with flies inside. As he sees it, he starts eating them and Abraham Van Helsing
Abraham Van Helsing
Professor Abraham van Helsing is a protagonist from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula.Van Helsing is a Dutch doctor with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, partly attested by the string of letters that follows his name: "M.D., D.Ph., D.Litt., etc." The character is best known as a...
can go through the room.
In the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
Blood Alone
Blood Alone
Blood Alone is a vampire manga with crime fiction undertones, written by , author of Boogiepop Dual. It was originally published as a dōjinshi.-Plot:...
, Renfields are humans who have tasted the blood of vampires and acquired vampiric powers such as immortality
Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
. However they also lose their will and become fully devoted to the vampire whose blood they have tasted.
In the Canadian/German cult sci-fi/dark comedy television series Lexx
Lexx
Lexx is a science fantasy television series that follows the adventures of a group of mismatched individuals aboard the organic space craft Lexx. They travel through two universes and encounter planets including a parody of the Earth....
, the episode "Walpurgis Night" is a parody of Dracula, featuring Dracula as a British actor hired to "keep the peasants in line" by posing as a vampire. Renfield is depicted as a wild haired lunatic who eats flies and is enslaved by Vlad (a 6000 year old alien "divine executioner" and the real owner of the castle).
In the puzzle game Peggle
Peggle
Peggle is a casual puzzle video game developed by Sukhbir Sidhu and Brian Rothstein of PopCap Games. Initially released for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X systems in 2007, it has since had versions released for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, the Nintendo DS , Windows Mobile, the iPod, the...
, Renfield is the name of a playable character, a pumpkin whose special ability is the "spooky ball."