The Last Voyage of the Demeter

The only other Dracula movie I've seen was the original 1931 movie while I was in class, though I was barely paying attention to it, so...

Anyway, this movie was pretty decent and it was enjoyable for what it was. (I got the theatre all to myself, which was fun, but I forgot how big and salty a large bag of popcorn was, so that may have ruined it for me) The acting was fine, the characters were at least mildly interesting, I liked the costumes, and the tension was decent as well.

I do think that Woody Norman did pretty well, his character was probably my favorite overall lol

What confused me a little is that the characters were a bit stupid?? So, Dracula is on the ship (though I don't think they know it's him yet), killing people on the ship, they don't decide to search the crates until later in the movie, and in the middle of the night at that?

However, the movie did manage to get me slightly sad during one of the scenes, which is good because I usually get mad at movies instead of sad.

I'd try to give it a watch if I were you but don't expect a cinematic masterpiece or anything like that.

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.

'The Last Voyage of the Demeter' ended up being a lot better than I expected. I haven't seen a good vampire film in such a long time that I was really starting to suspect the genre had very little left to offer. Naturally then, I went into this film with rather low expectations. The film pleasantly surprised me though.

The film is very well made. We start with a scene from later in the movie. I'm not always the biggest fan of this, but in this case it was needed as there was a lengthy time of set-up at the beginning of the film, where if there wasn't promise of excitement to come, it could've lost some audience members.

Once the horror begins it was reasonably effective. The ship in the middle of the ocean is a truly great setting for a horror movie. There are a lot of night scenes too (vampire movies naturally always have a lot of those) which added to the suspenseful atmosphere.

And outside of the horror there was some decent stuff going on too. Some character's who were actually fairly likeable (unheard of in a modern horror film, right?). Also some very well written dialogue helped flesh things out and kept the less interesting scenes afloat.

The film wasn't afraid to break some boundaries too. Often in films like this you can tell at the start all the characters that are 100% going to be safe, but that wasn't the case here. I was pleasantly surprised by that.

All in all this did about as well with the concept as could've been expected. It's not a film I will likely ever watch again. But it passed two hours for me in reasonably enjoyable fashion. 6.5/10.

Just saw the critics ratings for this film on Rotten Tomatoes. Eh? Please ignore them. This film was atmospheric, thrilling, well acted and brutal. The set design was amazing also, so much detail. I can't believe the reviews. Go watch it and make your own mind up. Excellent little creature feature with a great premise and I had a great time.

The critics gripes are that they knew what was going to happen at the end of the film because it was derived from a chapter from the Dracula novel. So this doesn't make it an interesting watch anyway? That is also just a straight up false assumption. Film reviewers have really lost it these days. I have learned a lesson through watching this film first and then looking at reviews afterwards.

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)