Drac Pack Part 2

On the ocean, no one can hear you scream (Spoilers)

Clemens (Corey Hawkins) is the most recent hire to the Demeter, a ship traveling from Romania to England. Other crew members include Captain Elliot (Liam Cunningham) and first mate Wojchek (David Dastmalchian). Eventually, Clemens discovers Anna (Aisling Franciosi) in the cargo hold, who alerts him to a more dangerous stowaway aboard the ship named Dracula (Javier Botet).

Clemens is a doctor who doesn’t believe in superstitions and whose greatest desire is to know how things work. So how does he fare going up against a creature that totally defies explanation? Clemens does surprisingly well, actually. Of course, it probably helps that Dracula’s more overtly supernatural abilities have been cut.

Past Versions

Watching this back to back with Renfield, the other big horror movie about Dracula released in 2023, would make for an interesting double feature. Renfield is a comedy with moments of drama, while Demeter is a dark and serious horror film. Nicholas Cage’s Dracula also draws influence from Christopher Lee while Botet’s Dracula is inspired by Max Schreck.

Unlike in the novel, where he starts as an old man who becomes younger the more blood he drinks, this version of Dracula has a more monstrous, rodent-like appearance, like in Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. One he’s seemingly unable to shed, given his human disguise, is nothing more than a Jack the Ripper outfit and Larry Talbot cane. Of course, Demeter Dracula does still change his physical appearance after drinking enough blood. Eventually, he grows wings.

This film also marks an interesting comparison to “Blood Vessel,” the second episode of that BBC Dracula (2020) miniseries. Like in this movie, it expands “The Captain’s Log” from Bram Stoker’s novel. Except there, BBC Dracula (Claes Bang) poses as a passenger to practice blending in among humans, with great emphasis placed on him being alluring/seductive. Demeter Dracula lives like an animal while on the ship, and the monstrous qualities of the character are emphasized.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter features one of the least sympathetic depictions of Dracula. At the movie’s beginning, he comes off as a feral predator. Then he demonstrates the ability to plan and set traps. Then about a third of the way into the movie, he repeats back a crew member’s cries for mercy before smiling. Showing that he’s not just killing people for food but because he enjoys it.

From Script To Screen

This movie took forever to make, and by forever, I mean 21 years. Bragi Schut Jr. wrote the script’s first draft in 2002. His idea was an Alien-type film with Dracula. Then, when Robert Schwentke signed on to direct, he did a rewrite with writing partner Mitch Brian. James V. Hart and Lowell Cauffiel did further rewrites. The final draft was written by Zak Olkewicz, with Schut getting an additional screenplay and story credit while André Øvredal directed the movie.

The Schut/Schwentke/Brian/Hart version of the script is available to read online. Unsurprisingly, it bears only a slight resemblance to the finished product. The protagonist is a Romanian named Alexei “Alec” Radu, with a personal connection to Dracula. The female stowaway is an Englishwoman named Helen Bryce-Edgerton, who wants to get home. Though not an exact match, they almost switched places when they became Clemens and Anna.

Additionally, with a film stuck in development hell for that long, the screenwriter wasn’t the only thing that changed. At separate points, Marcus Nispel and Neil Marshall were going to direct. Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Ben Kingsley, and Viggo Mortensen were the cast members who were in talks to appear in the film. At one point, Thomas Newman was going to score the film before scheduling conflicts led to Bear McCredy getting the job.

What’s funny is that if Marshall had stuck around as director, the film would have had one of Game of Thrones’ most notable directors with two of the show’s actors. Cunningham was Ser Davos Seaworth, a major character from the second season onward, while Franciosi had a more minor but no less important appearance as Lyanna Stark. Their characters never interacted, as they do here, because Lyanna is much too dead.

Final Thoughts

In terms of the movie’s tone, there are too many jump scares. However, I like how the film draws suspense without using music and letting the natural ambiance of the waves and creaking ship be creepy enough. The film also does a good job of pulling at your heartstrings as this doomed voyage goes from bad to worse.

The film’s darkest hour comes after Dracula kills Tobey (Woody Norman), the captain’s grandson and a minor. Then, during his funeral Tobey transforms and tries to kill Elliot, only to catch on fire because of the sunlight and burn them both. It’s a really dark part of the movie, and I appreciate the film for being willing to go there instead of playing it safe.

Another thing that I like about this movie is the amount of realistic strife. Yeah, tempers flare due to the stress of the situation, and some of the characters are about as politically correct as you’d expect 18th-century sailors to be, but no one’s cartoonishly abrasive. That’s a nice change of pace from movies like, say, Saw II and V, which was watching about 90 minutes of jerks.

My biggest problem with this movie is that while the characters aren’t badly written, they could be more memorable. However, the actors’ performances are all solid, and so is the directing. The sets for the film look fantastic and it also manages to be an entertaining movie. Other reviewers haven’t been quite so kind, but for what it’s worth, Stephen King and Guillermo del Toro are also in this movie’s corner.