Before the Walking Dead made Zombies A-Listers Vampires were the go to for monster movie supernatural horror. with the king of all Vampires, Dracula. With adaptions into the hundreds and almost all taking some form of inspiration of from the original Bram Stoker does The Last Voyage of the Demeter make room for one more?
For those not familiar with the original book published in 1897 and based on the Transylvanian folklore (the name Dracula even means Devil in Romanian) Dracula is the tale of a vampire, THE vampire that is told through letters, diary entries, newspaper articles, etc recounting the journey of Count Dracula moving from his ancestral home in Transylvanian to London.
While there is more to it than that with the Count manipulating humans to do his bidding, biting and cursing victims to also turn into the undead, etc one chapter is completely concerned with Dracula’s journey to London onboard the cargo ship The Demeter. Within the novel the trip is retold via the Ship Captain’s Log as the Demeter carries several crates loaded with Transylvanian soil (Dracula can only sleep in the soil of his homeland). While only a chapter the new film draws that out to a nearly 2 hour run time.
Set decades before Ellen Ripley found herself in a similar situation on a ship with a Xenomorph, the film plays through the voyage of the doomed crew before the ship is wrecked on the English coast. While on paper a small scale film with a fixed set and a small cast of the crew, captain, ship’s doctor and so on the production value of the film is actually much higher than you would expect especially considering it was mostly shot during the height of the pandemic.
Playing more like a Monster/Horror film like Alien than something with Gary Oldman in a velvet suit seducing victims , the film carries an R rating in the US (MA 15+ for Australia) as it is not shy about seeing the crew meet bloody ends. A crew made up of more than a few familiar faces including ones you may recognise from Suicide Squad and Game of Thrones.
So should you go see it? If the original Alien but with Dracula sounds like your perfect film than this was custom made for you. As mentioned while not a new story and just an embellishment of the original chapter from the Bram Stoker book it is still a journey as you see Dracula grow in power across the journey as he rations his ‘food’ aka doomed crew. Just expect to maybe avoid the dark alcoves for a little while.
Dracula: Last Voyage of the Demeter is in cinemas across Australia from today
