Last weekend, we looked at a couple of family-friendly witch-themed Halloween movies. This weekend, we review two recent vampire films, neither made for little kids.
The first one brings history’s most famous bloodsucker back to the screen, and attempts to restore the horror once associated with his name.
Title: The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Cast and Crew
Directed by André Øvredal
Written by Bragi F. Schut Jr. and Zak Olkewicz, based on events in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Corey Hawkins as Clemens
Liam Cunningham as Captain Eliot
David Dastmalchian as Wojchek
Aisling Franciosi as Anna
Javier Botet as Count Dracula
Woody Norman as Toby
Jon Jon Briones as Joseph
Stefan Kapičić as Olgaren
Nikolai Nikolaeff as Petrofsky
Martin Furulund as Larsen
Chris Walley as Abrams
Nicolo Pasetti as Deputy Hirsch
Sally Reeve as Landlady
Premise
In 1893, a boat drifts into the storm-battered Whitby shore. The crew has pulled a Mary Celeste. The dead captain remains, “fastened by his hands, tied one over the other, to a spoke of the wheel.” These things happen in the seventh chapter of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. What the novel leaves mostly to the fevered imagination, André Øvredal’s film presents in occasionally gory detail.
The 2023 film begins more like the classic horror of yore than it does more recent genre offerings. We meet the players– effectively acted.
Then people start dying.
High Point
Dracula, the suave foreign count? Forget it. Someone who could be that character appears once, for seconds. At sea, on board a vessel that he has doomed, he doesn’t need his charming aristocratic guise.
The film restores Dracula’s status as monster: horrifying, cruel, and evil.
Low Point
The film—apparently in development and development hell since the early 1990s– is well-made, but the script doesn’t do enough with its premise. You do not want a suspenseful thriller to become dull, and at times, this one does.
The Scores:
Originality: 2/6 Alien at sea, based on a chapter of an oft-filmed novel.
Effects: 5/6 Effects are good, but some of the CGI still looks like CGI. Göran Lundström, who created the make-up and prosthetics, has complained that he and his team had almost no contact with the CGI team.
Production: 6/6 The film features solid production and feels true to its era.
Acting: 6/6
Story: 3/6
Emotional Response: 4/6 The film features a creepy, claustrophobic atmosphere, and mostly eschews jump scares. While effective and occasionally frightening, it moves very slowly and never fully capitalizes on its strengths.
Overall: 4/6 The Last Voyage of the Demeter is no great horror, but it’s superior to any of Universal’s recent, other attempts to launch some kind of Classic Monster Cinematic Universe. One could imagine a Dracula for which this film would be the optional middle act (film adaptations rarely give much attention to the Demeter). I would watch that movie. A certain surviving character might perhaps fill in for cowboy Quincey Morris, often absent from film adaptations. Alas, reviews were tepid, and the film has not fared well financially. What we have is an interesting experiment that might have presaged better things, but remains worthwhile for fans of the genre.
In total, The Last Voyage of the Demeter receives 30/42
The Schedule
October 5/6: Abigail (2024) and Abigail (2023): JD
October 12/13: Season of the Witch (1972) and Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) and Season of the Witch (2009) and Season of the Witch (2011): JD
October 19/20: Hocus Pocus (1993) and Hocus Pocus (2022): ‘Lex
October 26/27: The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023) and Humanist Vampire Seeks Consenting Suicidal Person (2023): JD
We have three reviews for October 31, all of which could be described as “cult” views.
October 31: The Love Witch (2016): ‘Lex and Sleepaway Camp (1983): JD and Dark Gathering (2023): Alexander Case