31 Days of Halloween: The Last Voyage of the Demeter

2023, André Øvredal (Troll Hunter) -- download

Full disclosure. Saving this one, watched in September when it came available, as filler for this 2023 October run, for I almost always fall down on the number of media pieces we watch, AND I will be interrupting the event by a trip to Vegas.

This is a Dracula movie. For anyone who knows anything about Dracula, the original book that is, they know the name Demeter. They also know what happens to the ship and its crew, and why. But to those who don't, the movie very quickly dispenses with needing to know, doing the "monster reveal" quite early on. Too early in my opinion. Far too early. Technically they never say "Dracula" but its telegraphed quite loudly.

Was there telegraph in that time period? I think so....

But I hurry us along. The movie begins on the docks of Varna, Bulgaria where the ship Demeter is preparing to make way. Her last cargo is delivered by peasants from Romania: massive boxes bearing the sigil of the dragon. A British doctor named Clemens attempts to join the crew, but is not really sailor material. But when he saves the life of the cabin boy, he is invited onboard.

Almost immediately after departing, one of the crates (of soil) breaks open revealing an almost dead young woman. Can you guess what she is? Clemens provides her a blood transfusion, because all blood is universal, but the crew takes her discover, and that she is a woman, as a bad omen. Half-dead girl inside a box of soil = bad omen? I am there with you.

And then the onboard livestock is killed horribly, and drained of blood. From there things only get worse, as the crew is picked off one by one by the quickly revealed bat-man. Man bat? If Dracula is able to pass as a human when he meets Jonathan Harker, it must be quite a feat of transmogrification. 

Once things are in full swing of fending off the monster, the remaining crew proves to have little chance of success against a flying creature of the night. So, they decide to destroy the ship and sink Dracula with it. But he kills off everyone but Clemens and the found girl, while the Captain ties himself to the mast, as told in the novel. They toss themselves overboard, clinging to some wreckage, but as we know, the ship does not sink, but runs aground on the English coast.

The movie ends with Clemens having tracked the surviving Dracula to London.

It was a solid supernatural thriller, with a solid cast, but I found it was held back by the confines of the predetermined plot. We knew he would eat or kill all the crew, and we know the ship would run aground.