Le dernier voyage du Demeter

I enjoyed The Last Voyage of the Demeter. It's a cool stand-alone movie in a subgenre I frequently enjoy. There are a bunch of cool scenes and powerful moments. It does a good job creating unique characters. The performances are fairly good all around, with the standout being Liam Cunningham of GoT fame.

The movie also has a bunch of issues. I couldn't understand a lot of the dialogue. This is partly due to the accents, but more to do with sound mixing. I wasn't as engaged as I should have been. And not everything works.

But the biggest thing holding it back is that it's slow. It takes a while to get going. It's a full hour into the movie before you see anything. Now this could have been enjoyable if we didn't know what to expect. We would have been wondering what's happening, what's causing all of this. But of course the trailers give it away.

And even for people who avoid trailers like me and went in not knowing, the movie tells you in text right at the start. Instead of filling you with curiosity, you already know and are just waiting to get to it. And even after that, it doesn't pick up the pace all that much.

I still had a pretty good time with this movie, although I don't really see myself watching it again. (1 viewing, opening Thursday 8/10/2023)

As a Dracula film this is pretty subpar. Honestly the worst depiction of Dracula, as a meandering, crawling, naked goblin thing that can barely speak and kills with its claws and inefficiently consumes about 50% of the victims blood while spraying the rest all over the place like a slasher film. Hardly accurate to the highly experienced and methodical killer from the book who has mastered the art over centuries. Additionally, the movie is by no means accurate to the books plot as the crew is the wrong nationality and the sequence of events doesn't even attempt to mirror that which was logged in the ship log from the book. So what is this? I'll tell you what it is. It's a movie about a 19th century cargo ship which gets terrorized by a creature that can only be explained by legend, despite taking place in an age of science, and which was inspired by a chapter in the book Dracula. So why try and limit the stories capability within the parameters of Dracula when you could have easily made adjustments to the plot and made your own independent story? Beats me but that's what they did and there is no fixing it. Shame.

They talked about the moorland but didn't show anything.

Also they didn't show anything bah Romania or Bulgaria.

These two factors reduced the atmosphere.

The movie is creepy at times, the settings claustrophobic n the idea of exploring the uncharted portion of the novel is downright solid but the lack of blood n action made me give low ratings.

Also some of the scenes are shot in too much darkness n the kills happens very fast. Some terrible fast cut editing which ruins the fun.

The make up of the Dracoola will remind of Nosferatu 1922 n Salem's Lot.

The characters make dumb decisions. After eventually knowing that the creature hides during the sunlight n inspite of knowing his hiding place, nobody takes the effort to throw his casket in the water nor do they try to search him or destroy his casket during the daytime.

Also why the Dracoola goes after Joseph (the chef) is beyond me.

Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023) is a movie that my wife and I saw in theaters this evening. The storyline follows the infamous voyage of the Demeter from Romania to London with a mysterious cargo. As strange things start happening around the ship the crew starts poking around the cargo and find a "stowaway" that warns them about an unworldly entity they must escape. Will the crew take the warning seriously or fall victim to whatever is haunting the ship?

This movie is directed by André Øvredal (Troll Hunter) and stars Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton), Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones), David Dastmalchian (The Suicide Squad), Aisling Franciosi (Game of Thrones) and Jon Jon Briones (Ratched).

This storyline, settings and special effects had so much potential. The plot is well set up, the attire and props are perfect, and the cast was well selected. The CGI used to create Dracula and his face were outstanding. There's some really creepy moments in here and some worthwhile jump scares. The kill scenes were intense, brutal and have nice gore and blood splatter. The transformation scenes are good too. However, the movie does run a bit long, I didn't "love" the ending and the entire film I felt like there was something missing and I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Overall, this is a unique and solid addition to the Dracula universe but leaves you with a feeling it was missing something that keep it from being outstanding. I would score this a 6-6.5/10 and recommend seeing it once.

We've gotten two theatrically released Dracula films this year. Truly we are living in good times.

I was extremely excited for this movie. A gothic horror film on a ship? A golden premise. And, delivers on its premise more often than not.

The film has glowing, gorgeous cinematography, a haunting musical score, and is acted to perfection, with even the child performance being quite good. And I was even more impressed with the production design. The ship creaks and becomes a character unto itself, with eeriness lurking in the shadows.

The writing is mixed, though. The script does make great use of the small location and has sufficient thematic depth and a few strong character beats. But unfortunately it's also bogged down with a lot of empty characters and too many scenes of meandering, repetitive conversation.

And even with the great visual craft on display, I found the scares particularly weak. Not a single one was unpredictable or frightening.

Even with its weaknesses, I implore you to see this film. We need to keep getting fresh films like this that take risks and show us original concepts.