Shocktober 2024: The Last Voyage of the Demeter (André Øvredal, 2023)

There’s simply no escaping the Count in Shocktober. It says a lot about the longevity of the noble bloodsucker that movies are still being made about the extended Dracula universe — both those examining aspects of the original Stoker novel from all angles, as well as those who are taking specific themes of the vampire myth and spinning their own yarn. Last year there was the largely unsuccessful Renfield, now here’s The Last Voyage of the Demeter, which does what it says on the tin and not much else. The Demeter was the ship that Dracula travelled on, in the novel, when he left Transylvania for London — you remember, he gets loaded onto the ship like cargo, buried in soil from his home country, the crew all go mad or dies during the trip, the captain’s log becomes the only remaining testimony to the terror, etc.

It’s not a terrible premise for a 89-minute-long, sleek, creepy chiller — unfortunately this is a ho-hum, 118-minute-long snooze. The actors are fine, I suppose, Liam Cunningham (forever Davos from Game of Thrones!) lends some gravitas to the proceedings as the captain. Accents are all over the shop. Everything looks fake and ugly, greenscreeny and too dark (a common complaint these days), just visually boring. Every outdoor scene looks like it was shot on a soundstage (which of course it was, but some filmmakers do a good job of allowing us to forget it, to suspend our disbelief). Dracula, in monster/nosferatu form, looks like a green Slender Man with fangs. Dr. Runtime not at all pleased (118 mins).