the voyage of demeter dracula

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The Last Voyage of the Demeter

A crew sailing from Varna (Bulgaria) by the Black Sea to England find that they are carrying very dangerous cargo. A crew sailing from Varna (Bulgaria) by the Black Sea to England find that they are carrying very dangerous cargo. A crew sailing from Varna (Bulgaria) by the Black Sea to England find that they are carrying very dangerous cargo.

André Øvredal
Bram Stoker
Bragi F. Schut
Zak Olkewicz
Corey Hawkins
Aisling Franciosi
Liam Cunningham
448 User reviews
197 Critic reviews
52 Metascore
2 wins & 9 nominations

Captain Eliot

Deputy Fisher

Deputy Hirsch

Fletcher - Whitby
Harbour Master
Old Romani Wiseman
One-Eyed Sailor
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Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Trivia Dracula's look is based on Count Orlok from the unauthorized adaptation Nosferatu (1922) . This was also the model for the look of the vampire Barlow in the original Salem's Lot (1979) .
Goofs (~1h 35m) Wojchek locks himself inside the cargo hold by inserting a wooden board through the handles, but they're sliding doors, so they would still open.

Clemens : I... do not... fear you!

Dracula : You will!

Connections Featured in YellowFlash 2: FlashCast: Hollywood actors going BROKE from strike! Lizzo DUMPED on a beach! Disney BROKEN? (2023)
Soundtracks Hangin' Johnny Traditional Arranged by Thomas Newman Performed on Hardanger fiddle by Kathleen Keane

User reviews 448

Aug 11, 2023
How long is The Last Voyage of the Demeter? Powered by Alexa
August 11, 2023 (United States)
United States
United Kingdom
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Dracula: Quỷ Dữ Thức Tỉnh
Dreamworks Pictures
Reliance Entertainment
Storyworks Productions
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$45,000,000 (estimated)
$13,637,180
Aug 13, 2023
$21,786,275

Technical specs

Runtime 1 hour 58 minutes
Dolby Atmos

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The Last Voyage of the Demeter

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Watch The Last Voyage of the Demeter with a subscription on Paramount+, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

What to Know

The Last Voyage of the Demeter finds a fresh angle on Dracula's oft-told tale, although lackluster execution often undercuts the story's claustrophobic tension.

A solidly scary Dracula movie, The Last Voyage of the Demeter will reward patient viewers with some intense scenes and plenty of eerie atmosphere.

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Audience reviews, cast & crew.

André Øvredal

Corey Hawkins

Aisling Franciosi

Liam Cunningham

David Dastmalchian

Jon Jon Briones

Movie Clips

How The Last Voyage of the Demeter Revamps a Chilling Chapter From Dracula

Liam Cunningham as Captain Eliot, Chris Walley as Abrams, and Corey Hawkins as Clemens in 'The Last Voyage of the Demeter'

Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Last Voyage of the Demeter .

The seventh chapter of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula , titled "The Captain's Log," chronicles the fate of the crew of the doomed merchant ship the Demeter through a series of logbook entries detailing the vessel's disastrous voyage from the Black Sea port of Varna to Whitby, England.

Unaware that Dracula is onboard, the captain writes how, over the course of their journey, crew members went missing until just he and the first mate were left on the Demeter. After the first mate caught sight of "a man, tall and thin, and ghastly pale," he jumped overboard rather than die by the vampire's hand. Eventually, the captain lashed himself to the wheel with a crucifix in hand to try to bring the ship into port.

"I shall tie my hands to the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and along with them I shall tie that which He, It, dare not touch," reads the captain's final log entry, which is found rolled up inside a corked bottle in his pocket after the Demeter arrives in Whitby with no one alive onboard. "And then, come good wind or foul, I shall save my soul, and my honour as a captain. I am growing weaker, and the night is coming on. If He can look me in the face again, I may not have time to act."

The Last Voyage of the Demeter , in theaters Aug. 11, takes this chilling interlude in the original story and turns it into a full-length fright flick. "I wanted to make a genuine horror movie about this little part of the novel," says director André Øvredal ( The Autopsy of Jane Doe , Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark ). "I found that to be a great challenge and a great way of doing something that could be part of [ Dracula 's] huge, wonderful legacy, but wouldn't risk standing next to giant movies [that have come before]. It's its own thing."

The long journey of The Last Voyage of the Demeter

Øvredal signed on to helm Demeter from a screenplay by Bragi Schut Jr. and Zak Olkewicz in October 2019, nearly two decades after Phoenix Pictures acquired Schut Jr.'s original script in 2003. Prior to Øvredal's involvement, a variety of directors, from Robert Schwentke to Neil Marshall to David Slade, had been attached to the project at different points in time.

The single chapter is such a captivating one that Demeter producers Mike Medavoy and Bradley J. Fischer say they were determined to get a movie adaptation made no matter how long it took.

" Dracula is obviously a very iconic and well-tread piece of IP that's been in the public domain forever. But this particular story was one that hadn't really been dramatized. It's been used as connective tissue in other Dracula adaptations," says Fischer, referencing scenes in 1922's Nosferatu and 1992's Bram Stoker's Dracula . "But no one had told the story of what happens on this ship across the body of a single film."

David Dastmalchian as Wojchek, Chris Walley as Abrams, and Corey Hawkins as Clemens in 'The Last Voyage of the Demeter'

Demeter traps its characters in a contained, isolated setting at the mercy of an elusive monster, a narrative arc that Medavoy says brought to mind one iconic horror movie in particular.

"It reminded me of Alien with Dracula in it. Dracula is the alien on the ship," he says. "That's what drew me to the story."

Dracula at sea

Demeter stars Liam Cunningham as Captain Eliot, David Dastmalchian as first mate Wojchek, and Jon Jon Briones, Martin Furulund, Stefan Kapicic, Nikolai Nikolaeff, and Chris Walley as the ship's crew. It also introduces some additional main players who don't feature in the book: Captain Eliot's grandson Toby (Woody Norman), Dr. Clemens (Corey Hawkins), and a stowaway named Anna (Aisling Franciosi) who is smuggled onboard by Dracula as a food source.

The role of Dracula (or Nosferatu) belongs to veteran creature actor Javier Botet, who has terrified audiences for years playing monsters in movies like 2013's Mama , 2016's The Conjuring 2 , 2017's IT , and 2018's Slender Man . "[Botet] breaches that careful relationship between human character and monster," Øvredal says. "He can find intelligence just through body language in how a creature is portrayed on screen."

Javier Botet as Dracula in 'The Last Voyage of the Demeter'

That's a quality Øvredal needed in his Dracula, as Demeter paints the vampire as a vicious, bloodthirsty beast rather than the sophisticated, seductive count he often appears as.

"Depicting Dracula as a monstrous, more freaky character was very alluring," Øvredal says. "I wanted to lean into the fact that he's lived for 400 years. I didn't want to see a beautiful Hollywood actor being charming and suave.

"We also removed the sexuality that Dracula is often depicted with because it's essentially just a survival tale for everyone, including him," he adds. "I wanted to see that he has survived and survived and that he will survive this journey as well because, as we know, the story of Dracula continues on."

How The Last Voyage of the Demeter ends

In Stoker's Dracula , the Demeter arrives in England amid a great storm. Witnesses see a large dog disembark from the ship and find only the corpse of the captain still on board.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter offers an inside look at all the horrors that play out on the ship throughout its final journey.

Corey Hawkins as Clemens and Aisling Franciosi as Anna in 'The Last Voyage of the Demeter'

"One of the great thematic elements of the story that is profound in its horror is the way that Dracula takes from each character the thing that person loves the most, including turning the ship itself into a living nightmare of the sea," Fischer says. "It's not enough that it's sustaining itself off of the blood of these people. It wants them to suffer in a way and enjoys it."

However, unlike in the book, the movie ends with one person who was onboard the Demeter, Clemens, surviving the passage and making his way to London with the intent of hunting Dracula down. When asked whether this twist opens the door for a sequel, Øvredal says it would be "quite a revisionist take" on what happens in the book from that point on.

"We try to stay reasonably true to the novel in this depiction," he says. "This movie is really about honoring the novel. But if you go further with Clemens' character, he obviously doesn't exist in the book."

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As those of you with a decent grasp of horror trivia already know, the Demeter was the ship whose ultimately doomed journey to deliver some especially dangerous cargo from Transylvania to London was chronicled in the seventh chapter of the Bram Stoker classic Dracula . Although this section, running 16 pages in my copy, contains some of the most evocative imagery in that sometimes clumsily written book, the whole episode is not that important to the narrative. It simply illustrates how the title character got from point A to B, and on the rare occasions when filmmakers have chosen to bring this story to the screen, the journey is either reduced to a brief montage or newspaper headline or ignored entirely. Now comes “The Last Voyage of the Demeter,” a feature-length expansion of those 16 pages that fully examines the strange occurrences aboard one of the most doomed sea journeys in literary history.

Upon hearing this movie's premise for the first time, I wasn’t entirely convinced it could work. This would be a film where practically every audience member would not only know exactly what the supernatural force at the center of the story is before the Universal logo hits the screen. But they would also—barring some unexpected deviation from the well-known narrative—know exactly how the on-screen events would play out. To me, it looked like just another attempt by Universal to introduce the character that played such a key role in the studio’s history to contemporary audiences following the misfired likes of “Dracula: Untold” and the recent and dreadful “ Renfield .” That may have been the case, but the results are a big step up from those previous stumbles, an often striking take on the tale that makes up for what it lacks in surprise with a lot of style and some undeniably effective scare moments.

Set in 1897, the film opens as the Demeter is about to set sail from Transylvania to London, carrying Captain Eliot ( Liam Cunningham ), loyal first mate Wojchek ( David Dastmalchian ), his grandson Toby ( Woody Norman ), and a small crew that grows even smaller when some of the locals recruited for the journey get skittish when they see that the cargo contains many large crates being sent by an unknown figure to Carfax Abbey in London. Among those recruited at the last second is Clemens ( Corey Hawkins ), who signs on as the ship’s doctor to get passage home to England. His expertise comes in handy when one of the boxes is accidentally opened, and an apparent stowaway ( Aisling Franciosi ) is discovered with a mysterious malady that requires numerous blood transfusions.

Soon, strange things begin happening on the ship. All the livestock on board and Toby’s beloved dog are slaughtered throughout one grisly evening. Sailors begin seeing and hearing odd things at night while on watch, and even the ship’s rats appear to have vanished, leading up to the deathless line, “A boat without rats—such a thing is against nature.” The members of the crew soon begin disappearing, driving the already skittish ones who remain further into paranoia that is not helped when the stowaway, whose name proves to be Anna, finally wakes up and informs Clemens and the others that to steal a line from Mel Brooks , yes, they have Nosferatu. As Dracula ( Javier Botet ) continues snacking through the ship, the rapidly dwindling survivors try to figure out how to stop him before they reach London.

The film was directed by André Øvredal , whose previous credits include such intriguing horror-related efforts as “ Trollhunter ,” “ The Autopsy of Jane Doe ,” and the underrated “ Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark .” This time, he is trying to figure out how to tell a story in which everyone in the audience will be ahead of the characters on the screen at virtually every given point. He accomplishes that primarily by focusing heavily on visual style, creating a moody and haunted atmosphere throughout—even during the scenes set in the daytime—that is both eerily beautiful and just plain eerie. "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" is one of the better-looking horror films to come along in a while. The cat-and-mouse games between Dracula and the crew are staged in a manner that suggests a seafaring variation of “ Alien ,” with Øvredal milking scenes for maximum tension before culminating in some nasty business.

Bear in mind, some of that business is indeed quite nasty—the visualization of Dracula shown here is a particularly grotesque and demonic variation, the scenes of slaughter are definitely gory enough to earn the “R” rating, and not only does the one character you are conditioned to expect to somehow avoid a gruesome demise end up suffering just that, but they also do so more than once. The performances, especially the ones from genre MVP Dastmalchian, Franciosi (so effective in “ The Nightingale ”), and Botet, are all strong and convincing, which helps to raise the emotional stakes to make up for the lack of surprise.

There are two points where the film stumbles a bit. Although the relatively slow and measured pacing employed by Øvredal to generate suspense is mostly effective and preferable to the quick-cut approach others might have taken, a few scenes here run on too long for their own good. Also, the film—Spoiler Alert!—indulges in one of the most irritating elements of contemporary horror cinema, a final scene that exists solely to set up future movies if this one does well at the box office.

And yet, the rest of the movie works enough so that these flaws don’t hurt things too badly. “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” may not be a classic in the annals of Dracula cinema along the lines of the Terence Fisher's Hammer production “Horror of Dracula,” Werner Herzog ’s version of “ Nosferatu the Vampyre ,” or Francis Ford Coppola ’s “Bram’s Stoker’s Dracula.” But it is a smart, well-made, and sometimes downright creepy take on the tale that both horror buffs and regular moviegoers can appreciate in equal measure.

In theaters now.

Peter Sobczynski

A moderately insightful critic, full-on Swiftie and all-around bon vivant , Peter Sobczynski, in addition to his work at this site, is also a contributor to The Spool and can be heard weekly discussing new Blu-Ray releases on the Movie Madness podcast on the Now Playing network.

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The Last Voyage of the Demeter movie poster

The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)

Rated R for bloody violence.

118 minutes

Corey Hawkins as Clemens

Aisling Franciosi as Anna

Liam Cunningham as Captain Eliot

David Dastmalchian as Wojchek

Chris Walley as Abrams

Stefan Kapičić as Olgaren

Martin Furulund as Larsen

Nikolai Nikolaeff as Petrofsky

Woody Norman as Toby

Jon Jon Briones as Cook

Javier Botet as Dracula / Nosferatu

André Øvredal

Writer (based on the chapter "The Captain's Log" of Dracula by)

Bram Stoker

Writer (screen story by)

Bragi F. Schut
Zak Olkewicz
Christian Wagner
Patrick Larsgaard
Julian Clarke

Cinematographer

Bear McCreary

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The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a unique adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, focusing solely on the ill-fated journey of the ship and offering a new approach to the vampire story.
The 2023 Dracula movie features a strong cast, including Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian, Aisling Franciosi, Woody Norman, Corey Hawkins, and Javier Botet as a terrifying and monstrous Dracula.
The movie, set to be released on August 11, 2023, promises to be a chilling experience with its Gothic tone, terrifying portrayal of Dracula, and expansion of the small chapter from the novel into a larger and haunting tale.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is an eerie 2023 adaptation of part of Bram Stoker's Dracula , and its cast, nautically-themed story, and — above all — its nightmare-fuel interpretation of Dracula himself has drawn intense speculation as the August release date approaches. Based solely on a single chapter from the legendary novel, The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a Dracula adaptation like no other, telling only the story of the ill-fated journey of the titular ship. Universal Studios' legacy of classic monsters continues with this 2023 Dracula movie, and yet it manages to find a new approach to the seminal vampire story by focusing on one part instead of the whole.

The production of The Last Voyage of the Demeter has been anything but smooth. Director Neil Marshall was to direct the Dracula film , as announced back in 2012, but his involvement eventually fell through. Various casting announcements came and went with nothing coming to fruition until the project finally picked up steam in 2019 with director André Øvredal taking the helm. Amid a slew of other book-accurate portrayals of Dracula , The Last Voyage of the Demeter stands out with its Gothic tone and a strong cast that truly does justice to the story that has been told and retold for over a century on film.

The latest The Last Voyage of the Demeter news comes just ahead of the movie's release. The final teaser for The Last Voyage of the Demeter has been released, showing off the movie's version of Dracula in all his undead glory — and this Dracula which is much more monstrous than the seductive gentleman image seen in many previous adaptations. While The Last Voyage of the Demeter's marketing has been doing an effective job of hiding the beast and letting the terror of the unknown do its work, it is not surprising that the final push before release is more willing to put its most iconic aspect front and center.

Along with the movie's impressive trailer, it was announced that The Last Voyage of the Demeter will be released on August 11, 2023. Though that date misses the typical Halloween season of September and October, it does reduce the amount of horror competition that Universal's 2023 Dracula movie will have to contend with. August is the tail-end of the summer movie season, but it could still give The Last Voyage of the Demeter a blockbuster feel.

The key to any successful horror film is a strong cast, and the actors announced for The Last Voyage of the Demeter cast promise a star-studded affair. The cast of the film is headed up by veteran character actor Liam Cunningham ( Game of Thrones) as the captain of the doomed ship. Additionally, David Dastmalchian ( The Suicide Squad) joins the cast as Wojchek, the Demeter 's first officer while Aisling Franciosi ( The Nightingale ) appears as Anna. Newcomer Woody Norman ( C'mon C'mon ) also co-stars with Corey Hawkins ( The Walking Dead ) as Clemens, the ship's doctor. Rounding out the cast, Javier Botet ( REC ) plays Count Dracula.

The best Dracula movies all manage to do something new with the iconic vampire, and The Last Voyage of the Demeter tweaked their Count Dracula by ratcheting up the terror. Unlike most adaptations that portray the Count as a suave and distinguished man, Javier Botet's Dracula is anything but gentlemanly. As seen in the trailer, Dracula has reverted to an almost bat-like form as he preys on the unwary crew of the Demeter. Count Dracula has always been a monster, but The Last Voyage of the Demeter has turned the Count into a living nightmare, more akin to Nosferatu, that will stick with the audience long after they have left the theater.

Declared by David Dastmalchian to be the scariest Dracula movie yet , The Last Voyage of the Demeter story expands what is only a small sliver of the novel into a much larger tale. Though little is actually known about the story of the movie, it can be assumed it will flesh out the absolutely eerie chapter and finally show what actually happened to the doomed crew of the Demeter. The deck of the Russian ship plays host to a story of paranoia and terror as the crew of the ship find themselves victim to the hellish desires of the ancient Count Dracula as he sails towards his new home in England.

Judging by the size of the cast, the nightmare of The Last Voyage of the Demeter will take place not just aboard the ship but on land as well. Though the movie aims to focus on the singular chapter of Bram Stoker's Dracula , it will most likely include other familiar moments from the book to expand the story beyond the confines of the ship. Regardless, The Last Voyage of the Demeter promises to be a chilling experience whether it is confined on board the Demeter or continues to haunt those on land as well.

RELATED: 10 Rules Of Vampire Movies

Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula was unique because it is told through the use of diary entries, journals, news clippings, and police reports as opposed to a conventional prose narrative. As such, many of the book's creepiest moments are merely suggested through second-hand accounts instead of explained in detail by the author's brilliant pen. While that did allow for the reader's mind to take its own journey into fear, it also left a lot unsaid about Dracula's deadly tour of England, which is where the idea for The Last Voyage of the Demeter was born.

The movie adapts the chapter "The Captain's Log," which offers a first-hand account of the tragic events aboard the Demeter as recorded by the captain himself. Coming somewhat early in the novel, the chapter shows just how dangerous the Count can be when unleashed, which makes his eventual arrival in the bustling country of England all the more terrifying. Even so, the book is notoriously scant on actual details, and The Last Voyage of the Demeter has reimagined those blank spaces as absolutely horrifying and gruesome occurrences.

The trailer for The Last Voyage of the Demeter introduces the characters and the basic premise of the movie while also showing off its unique gothic visual style. It also promises a variety of scares beyond the usual monster movie jumps and chills. Turning the cramped confines of the Demeter into Dracula's own personal hunting grounds, the movie's trailer shows the creeping paranoia and surreal claustrophobia that elevates it beyond just a simple horror film. Most importantly, the trailer for The Last Voyage of the Demeter features the sea as an inescapable landscape scarier than the dusty old castles of other Dracula adaptations.

The Last Voyage of Demeter (2023)
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Video Interviews

The last voyage of the demeter cast on their characters and battling dracula, director andré øvredal and stars corey hawkins, liam cunningham, and david dastmalchian chat about their fresh new take on a familiar story..

TAGGED AS: Horror , interviews , movies

Director André Øvredal and cast members Corey Hawkins , Liam Cunningham , and David Dastmalchian join RT’s Jacqueline Coley to discuss their upcoming film The Last Voyage of the Demeter . The cast members detail the importance of telling their characters’ stories, Øvredal talks about his vision for the film, and they all spill what it was like working with Dracula.

Unlike previous depictions of the iconic vampire, The Last Voyage of the Demeter adapts just a single chapter from Bram Stoker’s original novel, one that charts the fate of the crew aboard a ship carrying Dracula’s body across the ocean from Carpathia to London. It’s a fresh take on a familiar story, helmed by a director who’s no stranger to horror; André Øvredal previously brought us films like Trollhunter , The Autopsy of Jane Doe , and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark , all of which are Certified Fresh.

Jacqueline Coley for Rotten Tomatoes: André Øvredal has described this movie as “ Alien on a boat.” Was that sort of the appeal of it, the horror in general, or was it what you saw in the character?

Corey Hawkins: Oh, it was a little bit of both, to be honest, and a lot of André’s vision. First of all, when I read the script — and I know it’s been around for a long time — I saw this incredible character in Clemons, an opportunity that I thought was important for us to just go after. You know, you don’t have to hit the nail over the head with it, but he’s a black man, a black, Cambridge-educated doctor at the turn of the century. And I think that was important, because these men existed. And so part of it was also the research and conversations with André and our producers who also wanted to make space for that. And I thought that was great and important, especially in the horror genre, because we’re not always centered in that way. And it was great to watch this man who I think is an outsider, who I think represents the other, and Dracula represents the other; also the woman, the one woman on board played by Aisling [Franciosi] , Anna, she represents the other. And so there’s this dynamic there that I thought was just incredible.

And then also, I’m a horror nerd. I’m a horror geek. I never pictured myself actually doing it, and this being my first sort of… leading in this way, because I’ve been a part of some really cool big franchises, but to be a part of bringing Dracula back is awesome. My first time some being introduced to a vampire was Blacula in the 1970s, William Marshall and the Blaxploitation era. I mean, I didn’t see it in the 1970s; I saw it, you know, when, I was alive. [ laughs ] You know, the VHS, rocked it ’til the tape popped. But it’s one of those things that for me was just incredibly special, and it’s just great opportunity.

Rotten Tomatoes: Liam, your character and your performance, it’s a little bit more because you also are narrator to this. So it’s a very intense voice acting performance. I think it’s so interesting that your character goes through those various points because he really is what brings us into the story and lets us know that trouble is afoot.

Liam Cunningham: Yes, it’s a good point you make, and your audience should know that the reason I’m narrating is because the entire movie is based on one chapter in the book, which is the Captain’s Log, and it’s very sparse in the book. It’s this log where he says, “One of our guys is missing, there’s something malevolent on this.” So we, it was in honor of the book that my narration takes place.

The character of Elliot, which we have to kind of build from the ground up, is interesting; he’s a decent man. These are merchant seamen. They’re blue collar guys who deliver packages and merchandise around the world, and they’re visited by this horrific beast who treats this ship like his refrigerator. And I think that’s what’s really interesting, these decent men. There’s not a wasted character on board on this ship. They’re all kind of good people, and I think that’s what’s important. You can have whatever monster you want, and as David has said before, and I’ve said, if you don’t have people you care about, you’re not gonna care about the film. And I think you care about these people.

Watch the video for the full interview with Øvredal, Hawkins, Cunningham, and Dastmalchian.

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Hollywood's new Dracula is played by horror's greatest secret weapon

The Last Voyage of the Demeter actor Javier Botet talks about how he built his career playing some of horror's most popular monsters, from Mama to The Conjuring 2 to Alien: Covenant.

Senior Writer

Javier Botet has frightened literally millions of people by portraying monsters in movies like 2013's Mama , 2015's Crimson Peak , 2016's The Conjuring 2 , 2017's Alien: Covenant , 2018's Slender Man , and the same year's Insidious: The Last Key . But it was the Spanish actor's turn to be unnerved ahead of playing the iconic role of Dracula in the Malta-shot horror film The Last Voyage of the Demeter .

"In the beginning I was a bit scared," Botet, 46, tells EW in an interview, which took place before the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike. "I was sure it would be wet in the boat, a lot of hours in the night. So, I thought we were going to be cold, but in Malta, in the summer, the weather was perfect to make the movie."

Like nearly all of Botet's on-set experiences, the shoot was still something of an endurance test. The Last Voyage of the Demeter is adapted from the seventh chapter of Bram Stoker's classic novel Dracula that finds the iconic vampire killing off a ship's crew, who are unwittingly transporting the aristocratic bloodsucker from Eastern Europe to England. "The movie is really Alien -on-a-ship in 1897," says director André Øvredal , who previously cast Botet as the Corpse character in 2019's Guillermo del Toro-produced Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark . "Dracula is the creature that they have to contend with."

To enhance the Alien -style vibe, Øvredal decided to depart from the human-like look and aristocratic costuming of previous big-screen Draculas for something more monstrous. "It was always about being a demon, because that's what they call him. They call him 'the Devil,' and that's a big statement," says the filmmaker, whose movie costars Corey Hawkins , Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, and David Dastmalchian . "It was always my wont to create a creature movie here, to portray Dracula in a way we haven't really seen much. It's not really described much in the novel, how he looks when he's out on the boat. We just know that he has the ability to change into all kinds of shapes. So, we were free to create this demon as we pleased."

Audiences will witness a dramatic change in the Dracula creature over the course of the film as he gains strength by feasting on the blood of the Demeter's crew. "One side [is] the old fragile man, who's over 400 years old, who is now suffering from a lack of blood, and he's become almost like an addict," Øvredal says. "When he regains his powers, through killing the crew one by one, he then becomes the demon. For that version of Dracula, we were going for references in animals, and especially of course in bats, to portray muscle movements and how they used their wings."

The director's vision, turned into reality by prosthetic makeup designer Jörn Seifert, meant long hours in the makeup chair for Botet, but the actor believes the results were worth the effort. "It's been one of the best makeups, for sure, I've had," he says. "Jörn and his team made amazing designs. We had three, four different looks. In the beginning, it was more skinny, more white, more weak, and then it started getting bigger. After we release the movie, we will show a lot of photos of the procedure, and it will blow the mind of a lot of makeup lovers."

Botet is talking over Zoom from his home in Spain while one of his two cats wanders around in the background. "He's Selva," the actor points out. "Selva is 'jungle' in Spanish. And the other guy is Akira, like the comic." Amiable, garrulous, and clearly in love with the filmmaking process, Botet could not seem more different from the fear-inducing ghouls he specializes in playing onscreen. "He's just the sweetest guy, he truly is," says filmmaker James Wan , who cast the actor as supernatural fiend the Crooked Man in The Conjuring 2 . "All the great cinematic horror movie monsters are played by the sweetest, nicest actors, and Javier is very much in that camp."

You could say that the 6 feet 7 inches tall Botet was born to play the kind of elongated or otherwise outsized creatures that pepper the filmographies of Wan, Øvredal, and Del Toro, the latter of whom cast him as multiple ghosts in Crimson Peak . As a child, the actor was diagnosed with Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder which increases growth in limbs and extremities. Not too long ago, it would likely have shortened his life by decades.

"Marfan syndrome is a connective tissue disorder," he explains. "It makes you so flexible in the joints, very long. In childhood, you grow so fast if you have Marfan. The doctor told my father, 'Your child probably [will] never get 20 years.' I was so lucky because medicine has changed so much. Now, the expectancies of Marfan life, it's so big, it's like 75 or even more. But, yes, I need to take care, be responsible, and go to the doctor yearly."

Botet fell in love with movies after seeing the creature-filled The Empire Strikes Back and he spent his teenage years making short films with friends. Later, Botet joined a makeup workshop which led him to be cast as an emaciated ghoul in the Madrid-shot Beneath Still Waters (2005), directed by Brian Yuzna ( Bride of Re-Animator ). "I needed a monster. I wanted to have somebody who crawls out of the deep," Yuzna says. "I said, 'I want to get someone really thin, that we can then put full body makeup on, and have a cool-looking monster.' And they found Javier. I did audition multiple actors for the part, and Javier proved himself to be the best choice due to his incredible ability to act physically, almost like a dancer."

The filmmaker says his new cast member took to performing for the camera like a duck to water — or like an undead creature emerging from the murky depths anyway. "I don't think he had ever acted before, but he was terrific," the director says. "Quite frankly, he's the best thing in the movie."

Over the next few years, Botet racked up an impressive number of credits in locally shot movies, most notably appearing as a possessed and horribly changed girl in Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza's 2007 acclaimed found-footage horror film [REC] and its two sequels.

Botet's biggest break came when he attended Austin's Fantastic Fest in 2009 to promote [Rec] 2 and encountered Argentinian filmmaker Andy Muschietti , who was screening his horror short Mama . Muschietti went on to cast Botet in the title role of a vengeful ghost in hit feature film version of the concept, which was produced by Del Toro and shot in Toronto.

"It was my first big international experience," the actor says of shooting Mama . "It was hard. It was so cold. I was shooting almost naked in the forest sometimes." Botet compares Muschietti to the legendary director and perfectionist Stanley Kubrick . "He makes always 30, sometimes 40 takes," he recalls. " Sometimes 10, but he never does it in two or three takes. [You think] okay, we're here, and if you think it's going to go better, let's do it 1,000 times, no matter. But Mama was a beautiful experience and the movie was number one in the USA box office."

Botet's terrifying performance in the film attracted the attention of other Hollywood filmmakers, including Wan. The Conjuring 2 director describes the Spaniard as "a real performer," saying, "He plays these roles that are so much larger than life, and he brings such a unique stamp and creativity to it."

It is a sentiment with which Øvredal enthusiastically agrees after working with Botet on The Last Voyage of the Demeter . "We wanted to focus on the beast in a way, but still it has to be Dracula. He was able to portray that," the director says. "He gives performance after performance, take after take, with different nuances in accordance to how he thinks the character should behave and also what he hopes that I would enjoy."

Botet himself is delighted to have gotten his chance at portraying Stoker's vampire and says he would happily reprise the role, no matter how much discomfort that involved. "In the last years, everybody asked me what monsters I want to do. I always say Dracula, Nosferatu," he says. "Yes, I would love to play Dracula again, in a sequel or even in another franchise or another studio. Dracula never dies, never stops. He's immortal!" To the horror crowd, so is Botet.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter hits theaters this Friday.

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'The Last Voyage of the Demeter': Release Date, Cast, Trailers, and Everything We Know So Far

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After many script rewrites and production changes, the film's release date was moved from January 27, 2023, to August 11, 2023 . As of now, The Last Voyage of the Demeter will only be available to watch in theaters, as no streaming date has been announced yet. The film has been given an R-rating and has a runtime of 119 minutes.

The first trailer for The Last Voyage of the Demeter was released on Universal Picture's YouTube channel on April 13, 2023. Set to a moody remix of The Smashing Pumpkins' "Bullet with Butterfly Wings," the trailer unleashes plenty of vampire carnage.

This was followed by a teaser trailer released on July 18, 2023. The fifteen-second video doesn't show much, but it does plenty to raise the scare level, with mysterious deaths and a terrifying look at the movie's Dracula. See it here:

On July 31, a Look Inside featurette for The Last Voyage of the Demeter was released via Rotten Tomatoes, promising an Alien -esque story. See it here:

Bragi F. Schut ( Escape Room ) wrote a story and screenplay based on Chapter 7 of Dracula all the way back in 2002, but the film languished in development limbo for nearly two decades. Along the way, numerous interested directors came and went from the project, including Robert Schwentke ( RED ), Marcus Nispel ( Friday The 13th ), David Slade ( 30 Days of Night ), and Neil Marshall ( Hellboy ). Ditto for onscreen talent; at one point, Viggo Mortensen ( Lord of the Rings ) was cast to play the captain but dropped out after the production hit numerous snags. Ben Kingsley ( Ghandi ) and Noomi Rapace ( Girl With The Dragon Tattoo ) were also attached at one point . Finally, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark director André Øvredal took the helm in 2019 , working off a screenplay written by Bragi and Zak Olkewicz .

The film is produced by Brad Fischer , Mike Medavoy , and Arnold Messer , and executive produced by Matthew Hirsch . The production companies involved include Amblin Entertainment, Amblin Partners, Latina Pictures, New Republic Pictures, Phoenix Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Viola Film, with distribution by Universal Pictures. Roman Osin and Tom Stern serve as the cinematographers and Thomas Newman composed the film's score.

Related: Comparing Universal's Dueling 1931 'Dracula' Films – Which Is More Unsettling?

Principal photography began in June 2021 in Berlin. The film was also shot in Malta and production on the movie wrapped in the fall of the same year with Amblin announcing the end of filming with a Twitter post dated September 30, 2021.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter stars Corey Hawkins ( The Tragedy of Macbeth ) as Clemens, a doctor who comes aboard the ship. Hawkins is also set to star in the upcoming remake of The Color Purple later this year. Aisling Franciosi , who appeared in Game of Thrones and the upcoming film The Nightingale , plays Anna, a young stowaway who helps battle the merciless count. Liam Cunningham ( Clash of the Titans ) will play the ship's captain, who might go down even if his boat doesn't. David Dastmalchian ( The Suicide Squad ) plays the ship's first mate, Wojchek.

And of course, the man of the midnight hour, Count Dracula is played by Javier Botet . When he was five years old, Botet was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition called Marfan syndrome, which affects the body’s connective tissues, giving him unusually flexible and long limbs. In a rather inspirational way, Botet has used his rare physical traits to make a career playing surreal and often nightmare-inducing characters like the Slender Man in the movie of the same name, the Crooked Man in Conjuring 2 , and the terrifying title character from the 2013 horror film Mama . Considering his unique talents, fans can probably expect Botet's portrayal of Dracula to be less "jaded and debonair aristocrat" and more "horrifying wall-crawling monster"--with a serious case of the munchies. Other members of the ensemble cast include Jon Jon Briones , Stefan Kapicic , Nikolai Nikolaeff , Woody Norman , Martin Furulund , Nicolo Pasetti , and Chris Walley .

In Chapter 7 of Stoker's novel, the captain's diary entries recount the ship's journey from Carpathia, where they pick up some strange private cargo: 24 strange, heavy wooden crates that are to be delivered to London. At first, the journey seems normal, but things very quickly take a sinister turn. Everyone is anxious but can't figure out why they continue to face one extremely unfortunate event after another. First, a strange man is spotted on board, then crew members start disappearing. A terrible storm hits the ship and the first mate goes crazy, throwing himself overboard. The captain finally realizes that some sort of evil supernatural creature is stalking his crew, picking them off one by one. In the spine-tingling final entry, he's holding a rosary in his hands and lashing himself to the mast, determined to defy the monster and the storms to the very end. He leaves his log in a bottle in the hopes that someone who finds it may be able to decipher the terrible truth behind the events that have befallen him and his ship. By the time the nearly ruined schooner pulls into its next port, there's no one on board except one clearly insane man.

Expanding a little on the events of the chapter, the film follows various characters, including a doctor, the captain, and first mate of the ship, and a stowaway who clearly picked the wrong boat to sneak onto. No one thinks to check the wooden crates in cargo where Dracula rests during the day, and by the time the sun sets, it's too late: Dracula is hungry. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Øvredal described the film as " Alien -on-a-ship in 1897." That rather nicely sums up the story, don't you think?

The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)

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The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a Creative Dracula Adaptation That Bites Off a Bit More Than It Can Chew

Olivia rutigliano grades andré øvredal's new film on a curve.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter hoists sail underneath an excellent conceit. The film is an adaptation of a single chapter from the 1897 novel Dracula, Chapter VII, which is an account of a ship’s voyage chartered from Varna, Bulgaria to Whitby, England. The novel Dracula is epistolary and this account is the Captain’s Log, which records strange things happening aboard the ship. Crew members start disappearing and the sea grows tempestuous. Sailors begin reporting seeing a strange man in the shadows of the vessel. “God seems to have deserted us,” the Captain writes. By the time the ship reaches its port, everyone is dead.

The sailors do not know that they are transporting Count Dracula from his Carpathian empire to his new English home, but to readers of the novel who have spent the novel’s four opening chapters in Castle Dracula while the Count negotiates the sale of an English estate, it’s evident that he has begun his journey from his ravished homeland to a bountiful new world. The doomed voyage of the Demeter is a logical bridge between these two parts of the novel, but it’s often reduced to a single scene, or even expository shots of a ship leaving Eastern Europe and/or arriving on the shores of England.

It is a very clever idea to zero in on this oft-underrepresented section for two reasons. One, the story suggested by the Demeter ‘s log is one of incredible drama and terror, an opportunity to explore what must have been, to that doomed crew, a terrifying and dramatic mystery. Two, the tale of the Demeter is, when you think about it, a standard horror movie: it’s about a group of people who find themselves in a remote location with a powerful evil entity or serial killer (or both) who picks them off one by one.

The film, written by Bragi F. Schut and Zak Olkewicz and directed by André Øvredal, is well-versed in its source material, which doesn’t usually technically matter to the quality of a movie but which in this case helps greatly, since this film’s focused relationship to the book is its main selling point; Dracula has been remade so many times that studying the basics feels important for a film that by its very nature promises to burrow into the forgotten details.

That being said, it also takes up a very difficult task: it’s well-known at this point that Dracula does ultimately arrive in England after ravaging the ship and feeding on its crew. It’s quite a challenge to build the necessary rhymes and rhythms of the horror genre when it’s an incontrovertible fact that the entire venture is doomed anyway. It’s hard to get the audience to care about characters who are mere footnotes in the original novel and who literally must die.

For these reasons, I’m grading The Last Voyage of the Demeter on a curve. To make up for all these obstacles, the movie has the good sense to lean into what a horror movie with these restrictions CAN do to move an audience: steep itself in atmosphere and dabble in gore. The film is equal parts rich and nasty, baroque in its rendering both of day-to-day life on a cargo ship in the late 19th century and the carnage that takes place on its final trip.

The film takes its time before the scary stuff, allowing the audience to learn about the ship itself, architecturally as well as culturally. Then, when the waters get choppy, the fog rolls in, and the vampire gets loose, the film becomes a shadowy Victorian nightmare. Visually, including in the design of its vampire, the film takes much inspiration from F. W. Murnau’s 1922 silent horror film Nosferatu, one of the few Dracula films that captures in great detail the terrors on the ship where the Count (or “Orlock,” as he is named for copyright purposes) has stowed away. One of the film’s most frightening sequences, in which the Count stalks the last of the crew, feels tonally in sync with The Last Voyage of the Demeter , even though they are separated by a century’s worth of filmmaking innovations.

But The Last Voyage of the Demeter ‘s Dracula is almost the least satisfying part. He’s not in it so much, and when he is, it’s as a Orlockian, Kurt Barlow -looking goblin. And don’t get me wrong… that’s scary. It’s plenty scary. He’s ugly as hell. But Dracula the guy is the inspiration for 126 years’ worth of entertainment, and he has more of an impact when he’s a suave foreigner than when he’s his skeletal batlike avatar, or at least when he shape-shifts between the two forms.

There are two Dracula films this year—this and Renfield — and both under-use the Count. It’s almost as if these films are scared to, and I get why. He’s one of the most interesting and complicated characters ever created — he’s evil and yet sociable, human and animal, a monster and a gentleman, ubiquitous and omnipotent and yet with many restrictions, invulnerable but with many opportunities for vulnerability. He might literally be the devil. He’s also a feudal landlord from Eastern Europe attempting to fit in busy metropolitan London. That’s a lot to factor in, or even to pick and choose from, when designing a Dracula for your movie. The Last Voyage of the Demeter ‘s choice to make him more monster than man works well for the jump scares but also depersonalizes, uncomplicates him as a villain.

But this film is mostly about the crew dealing with an unknown, threatening presence among them—like in Alien (1979). Not to recklessly compare movies, but I’d say that this doesn’t work as well because the audience of The Last Voyage of the Demeter has so much more information about the monster than the audience of Alien. And also because the audience knows that Dracula himself is way more interesting than any of the regular guys pulling the lines and steering the ship, even though the actors do their damnedest.

Liam Cunningham plays the dignified Captain Elliott, who permits a young doctor named Clemens (Corey Hawkins) to join the crew before the ship departs Varna. Because Clemens is Black, the mostly Slavic and Irish crew treats him with a bit of racism, but no more than he’s experienced before, he explains. The first mate, Wojchek (David Dastmalchian) is a bit suspicious of him, but the Captain’s grandson Toby (Woody Norman) and Toby’s dog both take a liking to him. So does a veteran sailor named Olgar en ( Stefan Kapicic). But things grow complicated after they discover all the livestock have been slaughtered and find a young Slavic woman named Anna (Aisling Franciosi) inside one of the many crates of dirt that are being stowed aboard in the hull.

Amid these strange developments, the crew focuses their suspicions on the wrong newcomers, worrying about the two strangers above deck (Clemens and Anna) instead of realizing that there is a worse one below. The film doesn’t really turn itself into a witchhunt before it becomes a vampire hunt, which feels like a missed opportunity to complicate an otherwise very, very simple film.

Still, when Dracula does materialize, the film becomes a bracing game of hide-and-go-seek with the devil. And if that’s all it accomplishes, that isn’t worth nothing. The film might bite off more than it can chew, but it’s still a dark, deluxe vampire slasher. And, like, I’ll drink to that.

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The Last Voyage of the Demeter

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Planning for the film adaptation of "The Captain's Log" began when Schut wrote the initial spec script when he befriended a colleague who worked on Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), but did not come to fruition, languishing in development hell for more than two decades. After Amblin Partners obtained the rights in October 2019, it was announced that Øvredal would direct the film. The main cast members were confirmed in 2021. Principal photography began on June 30, 2021, in Berlin, continued in Malta, and ended on October 1. Some of the movie scenes were also recorded in the fortress city of Mdina . Thomas Newman was originally hired to compose the film's score, but was replaced by Bear McCreary due to Newman's scheduling conflicts.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter was theatrically released in the United States on August 11, 2023, by Universal Pictures . The film received mixed reviews from critics, and grossed $21.7 million worldwide against a budget of $45 million, making it a box-office bomb. [5]

3.1 Development
3.2 Casting
3.3 Filming
3.4 Special makeup and digital effects
4.1 Home media
5.1 Box office
5.2 Critical response
6 References
7 External links

On August 6, 1897, the merchant ship Demeter washes ashore in England . Among the wreckage found by the police is the log kept by her captain, Eliot.

One month earlier, the Demeter makes port in Varna, Bulgaria , to pick up cargo for transportation to London . The shipment, consisting of multiple large wooden crates, is transported by locals from Romania. However, the locals refuse to load the cargo onto the ship, insisting that they must leave the area before sundown. One of them hands the quartermaster, Wojchek, and another crewman, Olgaren, a large sum of money and wishes the Demeter a safe voyage before departing with the others.

Clemens, a doctor educated at the University of Cambridge , overhears that the ship is looking for crewmen. He attempts to convince the crew that his medical skills and knowledge of astronomy would make him a valuable asset to them. Wojchek rejects him and hires an older man instead, but while helping to load one of the crates, the new hire – frightened upon recognizing the dragon emblem on its shorter side – accidentally releases the tackle rope, causing the crate to fall. Clemens witnesses the accident and saves Eliot's grandson, Toby, from being crushed by the loose crate. The new hire declares the dragon emblem a bad omen and leaves; out of gratitude for Clemens' intervention, Eliot hires him as a replacement.

One of the crates falls and breaks open in the cargo hold. Clemens investigates and finds a woman buried in dirt inside. She is barely alive, and he performs blood transfusions on her to treat what he believes to be an infection. Later in the Aegean Sea , Clemens and Olgaren see a mysterious figure in the fog on deck.

The next night, all the animals aboard the ship are killed, including the ship's dog, Huckleberry. The crew, fearing a rabies outbreak, throws them all overboard. Anna, the secret stowaway, wakes up and warns them about a monster from Transylvania, a creature that feeds on the blood of humans . In her town they called it Dracula , to whom she was given as a slave of blood so that the monster would leave them alone. She claims that Dracula is already aboard the ship and looking to feed, revealing several bites on her body.

Dracula hunts the crew during the night, biting Olgaren and turning him into a vampiric thrall. Olgaren is temporarily restrained, tied to a table; he breaks free, and, seeing Toby in the hold, begins hunting the boy and traps him in the captain's quarters, along with Dracula. As the crew attempts to save him, Toby is bitten by Dracula. The next morning, the vampiric Olgaren, who had been tied to the mast by the crew, bursts into flames as the sun rises. Despite blood transfusions from his grandfather, Toby dies, and is wrapped in parts of the sailcloth for his sea-burial. During the funeral, the captain believes he sees Toby moving; he unwraps him, only for Toby to suddenly attack. The vampiric Toby catches fire in the sunlight (also severely burning his grandfather) before Clemens is able to throw him into the ocean.

The remaining crew want to destroy the ship and drown Dracula to prevent him from causing chaos once they reach London. Captain Eliot, Abrams, and Wojchek are killed by Dracula, and Anna is bitten during an attempt to save Clemens. Clemens rescues Anna by hitting Dracula with an axe, and Anna manages to crush Dracula with a part of the mast. Anna and Clemens jump ship, thinking the vampire is dead; before sinking, the ship ends up running aground on the British coast, enabling Dracula to push the mast off of his body, roaring in victory.

Anna and Clemens float away on debris, and she reveals to Clemens that she is becoming a vampire after Dracula's bite; Clemens' blood transfusions only delay the change. As the day dawns, and not wanting to become a monster, Anna willingly immolates herself in the sunrise as Clemens drifts ashore.

Arriving in London, Clemens goes to a local tavern where he draws Anna's portrait in his notebook. He hears the knocking signal from the Demeter ' s crew of "all clear", and then sees Dracula, dressed as an aristocrat, laughing at him; the vampire disappears. Leaving the pub, Clemens sees Dracula's shadow and follows him; he vows, for the memory and honor of his dead companions, that he will kill Dracula and send him back to Hell.

Corey Hawkins as Clemens, a doctor who joins the Demeter
Aisling Franciosi as Anna, an unwitting stowaway and the slave of Dracula
Liam Cunningham as Captain Eliot, the captain of the Demeter
David Dastmalchian as Wojchek, the Demeter ' s quartermaster
Javier Botet as Dracula / Nosferatu (the credits mention both Dracula and Nosferatu), a legendary Transylvanian vampire
Woody Norman as Toby, Eliot's grandson
Jon Jon Briones as Joseph, the cook
Stefan Kapičić as Olgaren
Nikolai Nikolaeff as Petrofsky
Martin Furulund as Larsen
Chris Walley as Abrams
Nicolo Pasetti as Deputy Hirsch [6]
Sally Reeve as Landlady

Production [ ]

Development [ ].

While working at a model shop in Hollywood , Bragi Schut, Jr. befriended a colleague who worked on Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). Schut took interest in a miniature of the Demeter used for the film and began writing an Alien -inspired film set aboard the ship. [7] Based on the chapter "The Captain's Log" from Bram Stoker 's novel Dracula , Schut researched the time period to ensure authenticity. [8] In 2003, Phoenix Pictures acquired the film and tapped Robert Schwentke to direct and rewrite the script with Mitch Brian . [9] [10] Progression on the film would stagger until December 2006 when James V. Hart , screenwriter of Bram Stoker's Dracula , turned in a new draft of the script. [11] By May 2009, Schwentke moved on and Marcus Nispel would step in as his replacement. Production was slated to begin that year. [12] [13] However, due to complications adapting the period setting and filming on the water, Nispel too would depart. By March 2010, the studio moved onto Stefan Ruzowitzky to direct while Mike Medavoy , Arnold W. Messer, and Bradley J. Fischer were slated to produce. [14] After generating Oscar buzz, Fischer sought out a meeting with Noomi Rapace in August 2010 to discuss the film. [15] He performed his own revisions to the script and officially cast Rapace and Ben Kingsley in October of that year. [16] Ruzowitzky would exit the film in favor of taking on Deadfall (2012). [17]

David Slade became attached to the film in February 2011, but reports indicated that Rapace was likely to drop out of the film due to her impending commitments to Prometheus (2012). [18] Rapace would verify these doubts the following month. [19] Days later, Jude Law was reportedly in line to lead the film. [20] The next month, Slade reassured that film was still moving forward despite signing on to a Daredevil film. [21] [22] In May 2012, Neil Marshall and Millennium Films boarded the film to direct and produce. [23] [24] Novelist Lowell Cauffiel was brought along for further rewrites. [25] By June, Viggo Mortensen began talks to portray the lead role. Kingsley was still said to be attached to the project while Rapace's involvement stayed in doubt. [26] In December 2014, Marshall remained hopeful that the film would be made. [27] Much like the filmmakers before him, Marshall would leave too.

In October 2019, it was announced André Øvredal would direct the film with Amblin Partners obtaining the rights. [28] In January 2021, Corey Hawkins joined the cast of the film with a new draft written by Zak Olkewicz. [29] In December 2022, Schut and Olkewicz received screenplay credit, Schut received screen story credit, and Brian, Cauffiel, Hart, Ruzowitzky, and Schwentke received off-screen additional literary material credit. [30]

Casting [ ]

In June 2021, David Dastmalchian , Liam Cunningham , Aisling Franciosi , Javier Botet , Jon Jon Briones , Stefan Kapičić , Nikolai Nikolaeff , Woody Norman , Martin Furulund and Chris Walley joined the cast of the film. [31]

Filming [ ]

Principal photography began on June 30, 2021, in Berlin , before occurring in Malta, and ended on October 1. Some of the movie scenes were also recorded in the fortress city of Mdina . [32] [33] [34]

Special makeup and digital effects [ ]

Göran Lundström served as makeup designer on the film. [35] Lundström initially declined the position when it was offered to him by Fischer in 2021, as Lundström was then working as a makeup artist on the biographical crime drama film House of Gucci , but he later joined the project. [35] Lundström described the process of fully applying prosthetic makeup to Botet as having taken "a long time, it was like a four-hour application. They're never as long as actors say they are, but I don't think Javier has exaggerated this one. Usually we aim for three hours, which is a normal makeup time for full coverage, but for this creature suit, sticking things on and gluing things down and covering it, it was a four-hour job." [35]

Lundström said that the practical makeup effects team collaborated little with the post-production team responsible for creating the film's computer-generated (CG) effects, stating, "We did interact a little on set; I showed them what we had, I gave them scans of all our sculptures, they took photos of all the eyeballs we had made to put in front of Javier's eyes, and they scanned him on set in the suit. But for the rest of it, we weren't really involved, which is a shame." [35]

In April 2022, Thomas Newman was originally announced as the composer for the film. [36] However, in June 2023, Newman left the project due to his scheduling conflicts, with Bear McCreary serving as his replacement. [37] The soundtrack album was released on August 11, 2023, the same day as the theatrical release. [38]

Release [ ]

The Last Voyage of the Demeter was released theatrically in the United States on August 11, 2023, by Universal Pictures . [39] [40] It was previously scheduled for January 27, 2023. [41]

Home media [ ]

The Last Voyage of the Demeter was released for digital platforms on August 29, 2023, followed by a Blu-ray and DVD release on October 17, 2023. [42]

Reception [ ]

Box office [ ].

The Last Voyage of the Demeter has grossed $13.6 million in the United States and Canada and $8.2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $21.8 million. [2] [3]

In the United States and Canada, The Last Voyage of the Demeter was projected to gross $6–11 million from 2,715 theaters. [43] The film made $2.6 million on its first day, including $750,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $6.5 million, finishing fifth at the box office. [44] The film dropped 62% in its second weekend to $2.5 million, falling to tenth. [45]

Critical response [ ]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 49% of 190 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.6/10. The website's consensus reads: " The Last Voyage of the Demeter finds a fresh angle on Dracula's oft-told tale, although lackluster execution often undercuts the story's claustrophobic tension." [46] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 52 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. [47] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled at PostTrak gave it a 66% overall positive score. [44]

Vulture 's Bilge Ebiri wrote, "What truly distinguishes Last Voyage of the Demeter , beyond its thick atmosphere of dread, is its gleeful cruelty, the delicious mean streak with which it sets up its suspense set pieces and its kills... The film is filled with delightfully savage surprises. And suddenly, in this most predetermined of movies, anything seems possible." [48] Peter Sobczynski of RogerEbert.com gave the film 3.5/4 stars, calling it "a smart, well-made, and sometimes downright creepy take on the tale that both horror buffs and regular moviegoers can appreciate in equal measure." [49] The Boston Globe 's Odie Henderson gave it 3/4 stars, writing, "This is good, fun summer fare, shot in ominous shades of darkness by cinematographers Roman Osin and Tom Stern and fueled by an effective score by Bear McCreary that isn't obtrusive." [50]

Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter praised Øvredal's direction, but added, "he's not able to bring much spark to Bragi Schut, Jr. and Zak Olkewicz's slow-paced, formulaic screenplay, which lacks the dark wit necessary to keep us invested in the gory proceedings." [51] The Guardian 's Benjamin Lee gave it 2/5 stars, writing, "There's no real surprise to where we're heading, given the source material, and so a great deal of the film is a rather meandering wait for the inevitable. It's ultimately a doomed voyage: for the crew, for the audience and for Universal's monster movie strategy at large." [52] IndieWire 's David Ehrlich gave it a D grade, saying that Øvredal "falls back on chaos and cruelty, his movie sorely lacking the sense of dread required to justify either one", and concluded, "if you're going to make an R-rated horror wank about Dracula slurping throats with a smile on his face, make sure that the rest of the movie doesn't suck as hard as he does." [53]

References [ ]

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↑ Dang, Simon (March 28, 2011). " Noomi Rapace Casts Doubt Over Role In David Slade's The Last Voyage Of Demeter ". IndieWire . Archived from the original on July 5, 2023. Retrieved on July 4, 2023.
↑ Miska, Brad (February 15, 2011). " Jude Law in Talks for Lead Role in The Last Voyage of the Demeter ? ". Bloody Disgusting . Archived from the original on July 5, 2023. Retrieved on July 4, 2023.
↑ Kit, Borys (March 15, 2011). " David Slade Developing New Daredevil Movie ". The Hollywood Reporter . Archived from the original on July 5, 2023. Retrieved on July 4, 2023.
↑ Pirrello, Phil (March 21, 2011). " David Slade's Daredevil : The Next Batman? ". IGN . Archived from the original on July 5, 2023. Retrieved on July 4, 2023.
↑ Kit, Borys (May 11, 2012). " The Descent Director Boards Horror Thriller Last Voyage of the Demeter (Exclusive) ". The Hollywood Reporter . Archived from the original on July 5, 2023. Retrieved on July 4, 2023.
↑ " Neil Marshall to Direct The Last Voyage of Demeter " (May 12, 2012). Archived from the original on October 27, 2021. Retrieved on June 30, 2021.
↑ Fischer, Russ (June 25, 2012). " Might Viggo Mortensen Lead Dracula Spin-Off Story The Last Voyage Of The Demeter ? ". IndieWire . Archived from the original on July 5, 2023. Retrieved on July 4, 2023.
↑ Miska, Brad (June 25, 2012). " Viggo Mortensen Offered Lead In Dracula Tale, The Last Voyage of the Demeter ". Bloody Disgusting . Archived from the original on July 5, 2023. Retrieved on July 4, 2023.
↑ Barton, Steve (December 31, 2014). " Neil Marshall Talks Troll Hunter and The Last Voyage of the Demeter ". Dread Central . Archived from the original on July 5, 2023. Retrieved on July 4, 2023.
↑ Kit, Borys (October 1, 2019). " 'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' Filmmaker Tackling Horror Thriller 'Last Voyage of the Demeter' (Exclusive) ". The Hollywood Reporter . Archived from the original on October 28, 2021.
↑ Kroll, Justin (January 26, 2021). " Corey Hawkins To Star In 'Last Voyage Of The Demeter' For Amblin And André Øvredal ". Deadline Hollywood . Archived from the original on October 24, 2021. Retrieved on January 27, 2021.
↑ " The Last Voyage of the Demeter " (6 December 2022).
↑ Kit, Borys (June 30, 2021). " David Dastmalchian, Liam Cunningham Join Amblin Horror Thriller 'Last Voyage of the Demeter' (Exclusive) ". The Hollywood Reporter . Archived from the original on October 28, 2021. Retrieved on June 30, 2021.
↑ Sharma, Rahul (August 7, 2023). " Where Was The Last Voyage Of The Demeter Filmed? ". Lol Scream . Archived from the original on August 7, 2023. Retrieved on August 7, 2023.
↑ Lane, Carey (June 30, 2021). " Javier Botet Will Haunt the 'Last Voyage of the Demeter' as Dracula in Upcoming Amblin Horror Film ". Collider . Archived from the original on October 24, 2021. Retrieved on June 30, 2021.
↑ " Cheers to director André Øvredal and his talented cast and hardy crew on the completion of principal photography for THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER. You are the lifeblood of this creative endeavor, and as we all know, the blood is the life... ". Twitter (October 1, 2021). Archived from the original on October 15, 2021. Retrieved on October 3, 2021.
↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 35.3 Gingold, Michael (August 16, 2023). " Exclusive Interview: "Last Voyage of the Demeter" Makeup Master Göran Lundström ". Rue Morgue . Archived from the original on September 10, 2023. Retrieved on August 17, 2023.
↑ " Thomas Newman to Score André Øvredal's 'The Last Voyage of the Demeter' ". Film Music Reporter (April 12, 2022). Archived from the original on April 12, 2022. Retrieved on October 9, 2022.
↑ " Bear McCreary Scoring André Øvredal's 'The Last Voyage of the Demeter' ". FilmMusicReporter (June 22, 2023). Archived from the original on September 10, 2023. Retrieved on June 23, 2023.
↑ " 'The Last Voyage of the Demeter' Soundtrack Album Details ". FilmMusicReporter (August 4, 2023). Archived from the original on September 10, 2023. Retrieved on August 5, 2023.
↑ D'Alessandro, Anthony (May 20, 2022). " Universal Moves 'The Last Voyage Of The Demeter' To Deep Summer 2023 ". Deadline Hollywood . Archived from the original on August 3, 2022. Retrieved on November 24, 2022.
↑ Mendelsohn, Jon (May 20, 2022). " Last Voyage of the Demeter Sets 2023 Release Date ". Collider . Archived from the original on June 4, 2022. Retrieved on June 4, 2022.
↑ D'Alessandro, Anthony (July 20, 2021). " Universal Dates Jo Koy's 'Easter Sunday', Sci-Fi 'Distant' & Corey Hawkins Pic 'The Last Voyage Of The Demeter' ". Deadline Hollywood . Archived from the original on July 20, 2021. Retrieved on October 14, 2022.
↑ " The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023) ". DVD Release Dates . Retrieved on January 14, 2024.
↑ Robbins, Shawn (August 9, 2023). " Weekend Box Office Forecast: BARBIE, OPPENHEIMER, TURTLES, and MEG 2 to Overshadow THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER's Debut ".
↑ 44.0 44.1 " Greta Gerwig Breaks Global & US Box Office Records For Female Director With 'Barbie'; Why 'Demeter' Deep-Sixed – Sunday Update " (in en-US) (August 13, 2023).
↑ D'Alessandro, Anthony (August 20, 2023). " 'Blue Beetle' Still Eyes $25M; 'Strays' Goes To The Dogs With $8M+ – Saturday Box Office Update " (in en-US).
↑ " The Last Voyage of the Demeter ". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved on April 7, 2024.
↑ " The Last Voyage of the Demeter ". Metacritic . Retrieved on April 7, 2024.
↑ Ebiri, Bilge (August 11, 2023). " The Last Voyage of the Demeter Is a Delightfully Nasty Piece of Work ". Vulture . Archived from the original on August 12, 2023. Retrieved on August 12, 2023.
↑ Sobczynski, Peter (August 11, 2023). " The Last Voyage of the Demeter movie review (2023) ". RogerEbert.com . Archived from the original on August 12, 2023. Retrieved on August 12, 2023.
↑ Henderson, Odie (August 11, 2023). " 'The Last Voyage of the Demeter': The crime of the ancient mariner ". The Boston Globe . Archived from the original on August 12, 2023. Retrieved on August 12, 2023.
↑ Scheck, Frank (August 10, 2023). " 'The Last Voyage of the Demeter' Review: Corey Hawkins in a Dull Dracula Tale ". The Hollywood Reporter . Archived from the original on August 12, 2023. Retrieved on August 12, 2023.
↑ Lee, Benjamin (August 10, 2023). " The Last Voyage of the Demeter review – Dracula horror is lost at sea ". The Guardian . Archived from the original on August 12, 2023. Retrieved on August 12, 2023.
↑ Ehrlich, David (August 10, 2023). " 'The Last Voyage of the Demeter' Review: Dracula Has a Few Sailors for Dinner in This Watery Pile of Ship ". IndieWire . Archived from the original on August 12, 2023. Retrieved on August 12, 2023.

External links [ ]

Official website
Official website at Amblin
The Last Voyage of the Demeter at Wikipedia
The Last Voyage of the Demeter at the Internet Movie Database

The Last Voyage of the Demeter - Official Trailer

1 Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus
2 Count Dracula
3 Vlad III Țepeș

HISTORY & CULTURE

The little-known shipwreck that inspired Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’

Stoker was moved by grim details from the world around him while penning his horror masterpiece. The real fate of a ship called the Dmitry played an outsized role in his imaginings.

The arrival of the Demeter in Bram Stoker's Dracula serves as a fundamental part of the titular character's story: the ship brings death himself to England.

Stoker drew inspiration for his genre-defining horror novel from his time in Whitby, and the dark 1885 fate of the real ship Dmitry on the town’s shore.

The death and tragedy around Stoker ultimately shaped the story that became one of the most famous pieces of English literature and set the stage for the next century of vampire lore.

The wreck of the Dmitry from Narva, now Estonia, aground on Tate hill Beach, Whitby, Yorkshire, UK.

The Dmitry becomes the Demeter

During the summer of 1890, Irish novelist Bram Stoker vacationed at the seaside town of Whitby in northeast England. Despite spending only a month in the town, Stoker was enthralled by his surroundings: grand mansions and hotels lined the West Cliff while remains of the seventh century Whitby Abbey towered over the East Cliff. Nearby, the cemetery at the Parish Church also served as inspiration as the story of Dracula came to life.

Stoker was also enchanted by the many ships making harbor here. He reportedly visited the Whitby Museum to explore the history of these vessels, as well as a local library, where he came upon William Wilkinson’s book The Accounts of Principalities of Wallachia and Moldova. Stoker marked in his notes:

DRACULA in the Wallachian language means DEVIL. The Wallachians were, at that time, as they are at present, used to give this as a surname to any person who rendered himself conspicuous either by courage, cruel actions, or cunning.

Stoker reportedly asked around the shore about shipwrecks in Whitby, notably the Dmitry , a ship that had wrecked five years earlier.

Fuel their curiosity with your gift

The cargo vessel Dmitry had set sail from Narva in Russia (modern-day Estonia) in 1885. On October 24, the Dmitry was one of two ships run ashore at Whitby by “a storm of great violence,” according to contemporary newspaper accounts. The other vessel, the Mary and Agnes , was stranded in the raging sea and a lifeboat was sent to rescue its crew. When the crew of the Mary and Agnes was ferried to the shore , per the Leeds Mercury , “their safe landing [was] the signal for loud huzzas by the thousands of people assembled on shore.”

( Vlad the Impaler’s thirst for blood was an inspiration for Count Dracula . )

Those same onlookers watched on to see what would happen with the Dmitry . As reported by the North-Eastern Daily Gazette , the crew remained on board in the hopes they would be able to dock, but “the sea beat savagely against the vessel. Her masts gave way and fell with a crash over her side, and the vessel herself began to break up.”

Though unclear exactly how they were rescued, in the end, all seven members of the Dmitry’ s crew were safely brought to shore.

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There were several unique aspects to the last voyage of the Dmitry that appear to have stood out to Stoker. The Demeter originated in Varna (an anagram for Narva, where the Dmitry originated), and similarly carried “ballast of silver sand, with only a small amount of cargo—a number of great wooden boxes filled with mould.”

( The bloody truth about vampires .)

Through conversations with fishermen in Whitby, Stoker learned of an untold number of local deaths at sea. Stoker reportedly made note of some 90 names from gravestones in Whitby for future use in his story, including the surname “Swales.” Soon after the arrival of the Demeter in Dracula , he wrote “Mr. Swales was found dead… his neck being broken.”

What inspired Dracula’s canine form?

In Stoker’s novel, Dracula himself took the form of a dog to make his way from the Demeter to dry land, but there was no dog reported to have been on the Dmitry . According to Mel Ni Mhaolanfaidh and Marlon McGarry in 2021, the dog in Dracula may be an homage to the wreck of the Greyhound in 1770.

The Greyhound sailed from Whitby and sank off the coast of Ireland on December 12, 1770 (120 years prior to Stoker’s arrival in the town). Stoker’s mother, Charlotte, was from Sligo , a town in close proximity to the wreck. When the storm that sank the ship surged again, a young cabin boy was left stranded. The rescue effort failed, with only one out of the some 20 men sent to save him tragically dying in the process.

( Inside the fortress known as ‘Dracula's castle’ .)

Stoker made no reference to a dog in his notes until two months after he’d departed from Whitby. On October 15, 1890, Stoker wrote, “When ship ran in to Collier's Hope, big dog jumped off bow & ran over pier - up Kiln Yard & church steps & into churchyard…Local dog found ripped open & graves torn up…” It’s not clear if Stoker learned of these details from the Dmitry wreck, another Whitby wreck, or was his own creation.

In the nove l, the arrival of the Demeter was paired with a similarly remarkable incident: “The very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below, as if shot up by the concussion, and running forward, jumped from the bow on the sand.”

The dog, a disguised Dracula, wrought bloodshed and death from that point forward. This dog resembled the barghest, a mythical monster often associated with Yorkshire. Spellings and specific forms of barghest vary but the dog-like being foretold of pain, disaster, or even death to all who saw it. The barghest also elicited howling from dogs in its vicinity, something Dracula protagonist Mina Murray reported took place soon after the arrival of the Demeter .

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The Last Voyage Of The Demeter: Every Change From Bram Stoker's Dracula You Missed

Contains spoilers for "The Last Voyage of the Demeter"

A new interpretation of Bram Stoker's seminal classic, "Dracula," is here, and it's unlike any other adaptation to date. This film specifically focuses on a single chapter from the 1897 novel — "The Captain's Log." It follows a doomed crew sailing from Transylvania to London, unknowingly harboring Dracula, played by Javier Botet, who emerges at night to wreak havoc and send the sailors into madness. While it's a single chapter of the main "Dracula" story, it's the main course here as the sailors are trapped at sea with a monster.

Of course, adapting one chapter into a two-hour film requires some alterations and additions. Several liberties were taken with the source material, particularly when it comes to the characters. As evidenced by the chapter's title, "The Captain's Log" is primarily formatted with dates and explanations of the strange occurrences that take place on the Demeter before it arrives in London. The characters are fleshed out, and some are added for greater dramatic flair. Most notably, Clemens ( Corey Hawkins ) is an original addition who comes aboard the ship as a doctor. He's the only one who makes it to London with Dracula. He may not be in the book, but the film sets him up to appear in future installments should they transpire.

Anna ( Aisling Franciosi ) is another original addition as the sole woman on the Demeter. She's an unwitting stowaway given to Dracula as a food source for the journey but eventually conspires with the crew to attempt to stop the vampire. But a few new characters aren't the only changes made from the source material.

Dracula doesn't die in sunlight in the novel

Even people who aren't intricately familiar with vampire lore know that they can't go out in sunlight, or they'll die. This manifests in "The Last Voyage of the Demeter," as Dracula only comes out at night. Additionally, those who fall under Dracula's spell after getting their blood sucked burst into flames when exposed to sunlight. However, this part of the mythology wasn't present in Bram Stoker's "Dracula."

In the 1897 novel, the sunlight weakens vampires and prevents them from shapeshifting, but they don't die outright. That particular weakness was introduced into pop culture thanks to the 1925 German expressionist film, "Nosferatu," a silent horror film that can still scare you . There's a scene where Count Orlok (Max Schreck) dies at dawn, which makes sense in a thematic sense. Vampires are dark, foreboding entities, so using sunlight as a weakness, in essence light overcoming darkness, works within this wheelhouse.

"Nosferatu" is an unofficial adaptation of "Dracula," but it definitely changes certain plot points. While sunlight didn't factor into the original novel, "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" takes a weakness everyone knows about from other films and brings it front and center.

Dracula was more man than monster in Bram Stoker's novel

Vampires have undergone numerous permutations in terms of appearance over the years. With Bela Lugosi in 1931's "Dracula," he's a suave-looking guy who happens to drain humans of their blood. Subsequent adaptations have occasionally portrayed vampires as pure beasts who seek out blood in the middle of the night. "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" opts for the latter category. Dracula speaks sometimes, but for the most part, he's a pale monster with wings and fangs who seeks out unsuspecting victims.

It's a far cry from how Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in the original novel, who's described as "A tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere." The Dracula in "Demeter" certainly doesn't have a mustache, although he's notably taller than the rest of the crew. It's a far cry from Lugosi's version with slicked-back black hair.

This Dracula is a monster through and through who sports giant wings it uses to attack one crew member who tried to escape on a rowboat. It also uses its wings to engulf Anna at one point to prevent her from escaping. It may not be what Stoker had in mind, but it's downright terrifying on its own.

No dog emerges from the Demeter in the movie

"The Last Voyage of the Demeter" breaks a cardinal rule of filmmaking — don't kill the dog. When the ship first sets sail, the audience meets all the animals on board, including chickens and sheep. They wind up being the first victims of Dracula, and the dog also meets a horrendous fate. A dog also factors into Bram Stoker's "Dracula" but in a different manner.

In the novel, it's reported how a dog was the only thing to emerge from the Demeter wreckage: "But, strangest of all, the very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below, as if shot up by the concussion, and running forward, jumped from the bow on the sand." The dog was never found, so the implication is that Dracula shape-shifted into a dog to make its way into London. While most people assume vampires can turn into bats, the original novel established how Dracula could turn into other things, including mist and a dog.

A dog springing forth from the ship doesn't happen in the movie. Instead, we simply see Clemens, as the only survivor, make his way through London, obviously not done with Dracula just yet. In fact, Dracula doesn't turn into anything throughout the film, always assuming his monstrous form. It's possible a sequel could showcase some more of the creature's powers, but he's plenty formidable, as depicted in "The Last Voyage of the Demeter," playing in theaters now.

'Last Voyage of the Demeter': Biggest changes from the Dracula book to movie (Spoilers!)

Spoiler alert! The following post contains important details about the end of “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” (now in theaters).

All aboard the Dracula boat .

“The Last Voyage of the Demeter” has set sail in theaters, earning frightful reviews while sparking some amusing memes for its dopey premise . An “Alien” riff on the high seas, the movie is set on a London-bound cargo ship in 1893 where Dracula is stowed away. One by one, the fearsome vampire starts picking off members of the crew, sending a pragmatic doctor named Clemens ( Corey Hawkins ) on a desperate hunt for answers.

Here’s how the film differs from its classic source material:

New movies to see this weekend: Skip 'Last Voyage of the Demeter,' stream 'Heart of Stone'

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What is 'The Last Voyage of the Demeter' movie based on?

The film is loosely adapted from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula,” specifically the seventh chapter. In the book, the Demeter ship runs aground on the beach of an English coastal town after a terrible storm. Local police and coast guard climb aboard to discover that the entire crew is missing save for the dead captain, who is tied to the ship's wheel.

They manage to find the captain’s logbook, which briefly recounts the mysterious events from his perspective. According to the captain’s account, a crewmate reported seeing “a tall, thin man” on the ship, although no one was able to find him. Every few days, a member of the crew would disappear, until one foggy night when only the captain and one other sailor remained.

After witnessing something horrifying below deck, the sailor threw himself into the ocean, screaming, “The sea will save me from Him, and it is all that is left!” Resigned to his fate, the captain fastened himself to the wheel of the Demeter: choosing to go down with honor and face whatever monster has claimed his men.

Ranked: The best horror movies of 2023 so far

What's different in the new Dracula movie?

Because the film is based on just a handful of pages from the book, most of “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” is new. Clemens is not featured in the novel, nor are the movie’s other protagonists: Anna (Aisling Franciosi), a stowaway from Transylvania who helps Clemens fight Dracula; and Toby (Woody Norman), the affable young grandson of Captain Elliot (Liam Cunningham) who is killed by the vampire.

In the book, the ship's crew vanish without a trace. But here, each person's killing is shown in grisly detail, and Clemens finds the bloody evidence of their murders. The movie features extended storylines about Dracula ravaging the boat’s livestock, and Clemens attempting blood transfusions to save his injured shipmates. Clemens and Anna also do battle with Dracula in the film's effects-heavy climax, as they try unsuccessfully to trap him on the ship.

Ranked: 10 best big-screen Draculas, from Bela Lugosi to Nicolas Cage

What's the ending of 'The Last Voyage of the Demeter?'

In the novel, Dracula transforms into a giant dog and runs off the Demeter when it crashes ashore. That part is omitted from the movie, although we do see a cloaked Dracula again in the final scene.

Although there are no survivors from the Demeter in the book, the movie makes one major change by letting Clemens live. After the captain’s death, he jumps ship and floats back to the mainland on a piece of debris. Sitting in a tavern at the end of the film, he spots Dracula in a corner of the bar and chases after him, vowing to kill the monster in an apparent bid for a second movie. But the thriller’s dire box-office receipts will likely drive a stake in any sequel hopes. Sucks to be Dracula , right?

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The Last Voyage of the Demeter Is a Delightfully Nasty Piece of Work

A movie like The Last Voyage of the Demeter must drive some members of the spoiler police nuts. It’s based, as an opening credit tells us, on a brief episode in Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula — a captain’s log from the doomed Russian schooner that carries the legendary vampire and his crates of Transylvanian earth from Romania to London. The film itself begins with the discovery of the corpse-filled ship on a dark and stormy night, before flashing back to the first days of its journey with an unsuspecting crew of hardened sailors. So we know the story, we know what’s in those mysterious boxes emblazoned with the image of a dragon, and we know just about everybody on the boat is going to meet an unsavory end.

But this is where a real filmmaker gets to show their chops. With the ending basically a foregone conclusion, they can’t hide behind the drip-drip-drip of narrative disclosure. The characters may not know what exactly they’re dealing with, but we do; pretend that we don’t and you’ll lose us. That means the suspense has to come from, yes, cleverly engineered scenes of pursuit and carnage but also from atmosphere and character, those noble virtues so many genre films nowadays skimp on.

The movie has certainly got atmosphere. Like a proper haunted ship, the Demeter moves through treacherous lashings of rain and seemingly endless gray mist, its lanterns feebly lighting the way. One wonders if Norwegian director André Øvredal ( Trollhunter , Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark ) has spent some time staring at J.M.W. Turner and George Philip Reinagle and Caspar David Friedrich paintings; the film’s mood of doomed romanticism suggests he has.

The despair outside reflects the desperation inside. The crew of sailors, led by veteran Captain Elliot (Liam Cunningham) and the haunted-eyed first mate, Wojchek (David Dastmalchian, who makes everything he’s in better), are themselves a mercenary lot, suspicious and cynical and impulsive. They’re eager to sail fast because there’s a bonus in it for them if the ship arrives early. Joining them on the voyage is a young, Cambridge-educated doctor, Clemens (Corey Hawkins), who is initially rejected because he’s too well dressed and his hands are not rough enough. But then he saves the captain’s young grandson Toby (Woody Norman) from getting crushed by a falling crate, and he’s invited onboard.

The film does set up a potentially intriguing philosophical debate between the curious, scientific-minded Clemens and the rough men around him. “I want to understand the world,” he tells them. “Perhaps it needs to be experienced,” comes the reply. The deck is stacked against him, of course; there is, after all, a vampire on the ship. As a bizarre, bald, fanged figure starts to appear to the crew in brief, half-imagined glimpses, the pigs and goats and chickens onboard are mysteriously torn open, and the rats disappear. (“A boat without rats? Such a thing is against nature!”) The crew discovers a half-dead Romanian stowaway (Aisling Franciosi) with suspicious marks on her neck, and soon enough she’s warning them about what’s going to happen. Watching Clemens try and insist that there must be material explanations for all these occurrences could have easily become annoying, but Hawkins brings to the character a touching sense of anxiety: We understand that he needs to believe in reason and science because that’s all he’s got in this world. You feel for the guy.

But enough about the characters. What truly distinguishes Last Voyage of the Demeter , beyond its thick atmosphere of dread, is its gleeful cruelty, the delicious mean streak with which it sets up its suspense set pieces and its kills. All too often, studio horror films — especially ones based on classic monsters — can feel a little too tame, too bland, partly as a result of efforts to broaden their appeal. Not this one. Last Voyage of the Demeter certainly isn’t afraid to go for the gore, and it isn’t afraid to do away with characters we assumed would be off-limits, often in the nastiest possible ways. The film is filled with delightfully savage surprises. And suddenly, in this most predetermined of movies, anything seems possible.

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I Think Keanu Reeves' $216M Horror Movie Has Finally Found A Worthy Replacement, 32 Years Later

Get ready for a terrifying vampire movie with jump scares and unsettling imagery in 2024's Nosferatu remake.
Robert Eggers' film promises to be a straightforward adaptation of Dracula, honoring the gothic horror style in Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 version.
While 1992's Dracula may have favored style over substance, this new adaptation of Nosferatu aims to deliver a solid, scary story.

The terrifying trailer for Robert Eggers’ remake of Nosferatu suggests that there’s finally a worthy successor to the Keanu Reeves-starring gothic horror masterpiece that is Bram Stoker’s Dracula . Although it’s technically a reimagining of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent horror film of the same name, much like Murnau’s movie, Eggers’ Nosferatu is also a twisted adaptation of the original vampire novel, Dracula . Bill Skarsgård will star as Count Orlok, the movie’s take on Dracula, while Lily-Rose Depp will play Mina Harker stand-in Ellen Hutter and Nicholas Hoult will play Jonathan Harker stand-in Thomas Hutter.

The recently released trailer for 2024’s Nosferatu promises the scariest vampire movie in years. It’s full of jump scares and unsettling imagery, with a suitably creepy atmosphere over the whole thing. From the comedic, action-packed Renfield to the single-chapter-focused The Last Voyage of the Demeter , most of the recent Dracula movies have either subverted or satirized the familiar characters and plot points of Stoker’s iconic novel. Eggers’ film will be the first straightforward adaptation in a long time, and it looks to be every bit the masterwork of gothic horror that Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 version was.

Why Bill Skarsgrd's Nosferatu Isn't Shown In The Trailer

Bill Skarsgrd stars as Count Orlok, aka Nosferatu, in the 2024 horror film Nosferatu, but the movies first trailer doesn't show his character.

Nosferatu Looks Like The Best Gothic Horror Vampire Movie Since Bram Stoker's Dracula

Coppola brought dracula's gothic visuals to life.

Coppola’s 1992 Dracula movie, titled Bram Stoker’s Dracula to give credit where credit’s due, is still considered to be one of the last really great gothic horror vampire movies. Elements of gothic horror can be seen in The Others , Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak , and a lot of Tim Burton films. But these movies rarely grab gothic horror by the horns like Coppola’s film did. Crimson Peak is more of a love story than a horror movie and Burton often puts a quirky, tongue-in-cheek spin on horror tropes, like with the zany, brightly lit vampires of Dark Shadows .

Nosferatu looks like it’ll not only honor this style of the genre, but be the best example of it in years. Universal’s Dracula movies with Bela Lugosi and Hammer’s Dracula movies with Christopher Lee will always be the most iconic cinematic interpretations of Dracula, but I’ve always been partial to Gary Oldman’s Dracula from Coppola’s version. With its rich color palette, campy performances, and sumptuous set design, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is the perfect visualization of the gothic style of Stoker’s novel . Based on the cinematography seen in the trailer, Eggers is borrowing that style in his own adaptation of Dracula .

Nosferatu will be released on December 25, 2024.

Robert Eggers' Nosferatu Trailer Hints At Avoiding Complaints From 1992's Dracula Movie

Nosferatu is upending everything wrong with bram stoker's dracula.

While Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a beautiful adaptation of the classic horror novel with stunning visuals and (some) brilliant performances, it has been met with some common criticisms. Coppola’s movie is typically criticized for favoring style over substance , for its lack of a solid story structure, and for not being all that scary of a movie. Based on its trailer, Nosferatu is doing the opposite of all these things. There’s plenty of emotion in the actors’ performances, there’s a clear structure holding the story together, and there are a handful of hair-raising jump scares.

There is one complaint about Bram Stoker’s Dracula that might be replicated in Eggers’ Nosferatu remake . Reeves has often been criticized for his shaky English accent in Coppola’s movie, and based on the brief snippets of dialogue heard in the trailer, Depp’s English accent might be just as shaky in Eggers’ movie. But that’s only a minor complaint; a hit-and-miss British accent isn’t enough to ruin a whole movie. If Depp nails every other aspect of the performance, which seems to be the case, then a less-than-perfect accent is forgivable.

Nosferatu Has A Great Chance To Repeat Bram Stoker's Dracula's Box Office Success

The vampire genre has struggled at the box office lately.

In the past few years, the vampire genre has struggled at the box office. A lot of genres have been struggling to make the money they made before COVID, but vampires in particular seem to have been hit the hardest. Whether they’ve been panned by critics, like Morbius or The Last Voyage of the Demeter , or well-received by critics, like Abigail or Renfield , a lot of recent vampire movies have disappointed at the box office. If Nosferatu can replicate the success of Bram Stoker’s Dracula , then it could save the vampire genre.

When it arrived in theaters in 1992, Bram Stoker’s Dracula grossed $215,862,692 at the worldwide box office on a budget of $40 million (via Box Office Mojo ). Adjusted for inflation, that’s worth about $481 million today. Nosferatu is unlikely to make that kind of money – no one in Nosferatu is quite as big as Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves were in the ‘90s – but if it’s as good as Bram Stoker’s Dracula , then it could still be a hit. The Christmas release date is a good sign, because it shows that Universal sees it as a potential blockbuster.

Source: Box Office Mojo

Nosferatu (2024)

Director Robert Eggers

Cast Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nicholas Hoult, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, Willem Dafoe, Lily-Rose Depp, Bill Skarsgard

I Think Keanu Reeves' $216M Horror Movie Has Finally Found A Worthy Replacement, 32 Years Later

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‘The Vourdalak’ Review: Mood and Marionettes Make for a Pleasingly Odd French Vampire Drama

Adrien Beau's adaptation of a novella that predates 'Dracula' is impressively forward-thinking.

By Michael Nordine

Michael Nordine

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Reviewed online, June 26, 2024. Running time: 90 MIN.

Production: (France) An Oscilloscope Laboratories release and presentation of a WTFilms, The Jokers Films, OCS, Amazon Prime Video production. Producers: Judith Lou Lévy, Lola Pacchioni, Marco Pacchioni.
Crew: Director: Adrien Beau. Screenplay: Adrien Beau, Hadrien Bouvier. Camera: David Chizallet. Editor: Alan Jobart. Music: Martin Le Nouvel, Maïa Xifaras.
With: Kacey Mottet Klein, Ariane Labed, Grégoire Colin, Vassili Schneider.

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Count Orlok Is Coming in the First Trailer for Robert Egger's Nosferatu

The first trailer for robert eggers' long-gestating nosferatu remake has finally seen the light of day. and oh, it burns .

Universal Pictures and Focus Features have finally released a trailer for Robert Eggers’ long-awaited remake of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 horror film, Nosferatu . Take a look:

As you may have noticed, the trailer is deliberately withholding of Bill Skarsgård’s Count Orlok, with various characters simply intoning he’s “coming”—and this Christmas, no less.

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