A
character in
Bram Stoker's
novel "
Dracula." Renfield is an incarcerated
lunatic who serves
Count Dracula. He is
zoophagus, which means he likes to consume other
lives. In Renfield's case, he likes to eat
flies,
spiders, and sometimes
birds.
Personally, I always imagined him as a guy whose exposure to
horror has opened his
mind to the
true nature of the world. He's not
insane -- he's actually the only completely
sane person on the planet. That's why Drac keeps Renfield around -- he doesn't really
need a
servant, but he's not going to refuse the services of an
oracle...
Renfield has been played by
Dwight Frye in the original "Dracula," by
Tom Waits -- let me repeat:
Tom Mothafuckin' Waits! -- in "
Bram Stoker's Dracula," and by
Nicholas Hoult in the 2023 horror-comedy movie "Renfield."