THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER (2023)
Now in theaters from Universal Pictures!
Directed by André Øvredal.
Written by Bragi F. Schut, Stefan Ruzowitzky, Zak Olkewicz, based on the chapter “Captain’s Log” from Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/6FgUUO9Ztd0
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Music Written by Tim Heidecker
Music & Arrangement by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy https://youtu.be/PDySbxQgZMg
(I do not own this music)
MLMILLERWRITES / MLMillerFrights 
I’m glad you liked this movie. I did as well. I thought it was tense, surprisingly brutal, and this animalistic version of Dracula was great. That’s not to say the movie was perfect, and it did feel a bit repetitious (guy stands watch; guy gets killed; next guy stands watch). But given the confines of the setting and the novel, Ovredal came up with some great set-pieces and some interesting additions. I particularly liked that bitten crew members were more like mindless zombies than true vampires.
Like you, I’m really bummed by the box-office indifference. Certainly releasing it at the ass-end of summer instead of the September/October spooky season didn’t help, nor did the fact that Universal released the underwhelming Renfield just a few months earlier. However, I don’t necessarily agree that people are still interested in vampire flicks to begin with, or at least not true Dracula flicks.
To the extent box office is driven by the Rotten Tomatoes score, that definitely didn’t help. If critics appreciate horror movies at all, it’s generally only the “elevated” kind rather than solid creature features like this . Also, the movie publicity clearly showed Dracula when he should’ve been kept a shadowy mystery–even the preview stills like the one above feature a full-on shot of the final makeup.
On a final note of this too-long comment, I fear that the lesson studios will draw from Last Voyage’s failure is that period horror pieces aren’t worth it. I know horror mostly draws on the present–and these days, all the modern tech that comes with it–but a good horror diet also needs old spooky castles, creaking wooden ships and flickering candles. It can’t just be streaming shows and low-budget flicks that try to capture that aesthetic.
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I was on the fence about this one until this review. I’ll see it now, probably on home video. I was put off by a few things … the period film diversity casting (which is fine if there is a reason other than wokeness), and the fact that if you read the novel, you know how the story ends — don’t get too attached to anyone. But it sounds like there are enough twists and turns to keep a Dracula fan interested–which I am!
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