In addition to being a much-anticipated remake of the most well-known vampire in the world, Renfield appears to be a straight continuation of Tod Browning’s Dracula. Chris McKay, the director of Renfield, discussed how his next film draws inspiration from the cherished Universal Monsters franchise’s very first film Collider reports.

Renfield, which stars Nicolas Cage as Count Dracula, promises to take a fresh approach to the traditional vampire lord mythology. Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), the vampire lord’s bug-eating servant, is the film’s main character to start. While Renfield tries to end his toxic relationship with Dracula, the worst employer anyone has ever had, Renfield also serves as a break-up film. McKay says this about his film:

“I fell in love with the character of Renfield and his relationship with Dracula. Renfield is basically a guy who wants to get out of this bad relationship, and doesn’t know how—he’s been in this relationship for 93 years, and he wants to get out of it. I looked at this as an opportunity, because it has a lot of black comedy in it, there’s a lot of action in it, and there’s a little bit of suspense and drama in it too. So that, to me, seemed like a real fun combination. It’s not something that comes around the table very often. Something that’s obviously still tied to one of the oldest IPs in the world and probably one of the most filmed IPs in the world when you look at it. Dracula’s probably up there with Sherlock Holmes and Hamlet as far as literary characters that you see in movie after movie.”

It’s intriguing that McKay has decided to look into Renfield and Dracula’s relationship 93 years later since it makes a clear connection to Dracula from 1931, the first great monster film ever produced by Universal. That association is not coincidental because McKay intended Renfield to be a direct continuation of the bestselling Universal Monster franchise’s debut book. McKay even suggested this to Renfield’s marketing department in the hopes that they would promote this exceptional cinematic accomplishment. As explained by McKay:

“I kept telling marketing that that’s what we should say, that this is the only direct sequel. I guess you could argue ‘Dracula’s Daughter’ is a sequel because the opening scene is the aftermath of the Tod Browning movie, but Bela Lugosi’s not in it, it’s a whole different set of characters. And it’s a great movie, it’s wild if you haven’t seen it. I thought the movie was great. But to me, this is the only real direct sequel with the Dracula and the Renfield of that movie. So yeah, I wish they’d use that in the marketing. I think that would’ve been a funny way of positioning this movie. The longest time between the original movie and the sequel, beating ‘Psycho,’ or whatever. I guess ‘Avatar’ maybe now, since it feels like a long time since the first one.”

Renfield comes to theaters on April 14.