CREATURES OF THE NIGHT

GIVEN THAT HIS BOSS IS THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS, IT'S NO WONDER RENFIELD WANTS TO QUIT THE JOB

- BRYAN CAIRNS

CHRIS MCKAY adopted a simple mantra when it came to directing the upcoming action-horrorcomedy Renfield: "Make a fucked-up Dracula movie."

At first, that colourful mission statement might sound like a departure for McKay. He had previously helmed episodes of Robot Chicken and the animated The Lego Batman Movie before transitioning to the timetravelling alien invasion blockbuster The Tomorrow War. But actually the king of the vampires and his minion were right up McKay's street.

"I grew up watching John Carpenter movies," McKay tells SFX. "I'm a huge David Cronenberg fan. Tobe Hooper... Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Poltergeist. Jaws was a big movie for me. To this day, I gravitate towards horror. The perennial Christmas present was a Stephen King book - I grew up reading a lot of King.

"There was a neighbour kid down the block and his parents had a VCR. His parents were very permissive. I got to see Dawn Of The Dead. I got to see The Howling. I got to see all this stuff that was hard to find or not in the theatre.

"As I got older, there was The Fly and Scream," he continues. "Every kid in my high school, on their lockers would be sports heroes or somebody from a movie. On my locker, it was pictures of George Romero, Carpenter and Cronenberg. There were images from The Exorcist. I was probably considered very strange..."

RAISING THE DEAD

That weird and wacky sensibility paid off. After he'd completed The Tomorrow War, Universal sent McKay Ryan Ridley's Renfield screenplay, which was based on an idea by The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman. Charmed by the over-the-top premise, grounded characters and the story's potential, McKay didn't hesitate to sign on board.