The Final Voyage of the Demeter, based mostly on a small passage in Bram Stoker’s unique Dracula novel, is likely one of the higher takes on vampire lore in fashionable cinema.
There haven’t been loads of nice vampire motion pictures. Heck, there haven’t been loads of good ones. Whereas Demeter isn’t nice, it’s undoubtedly good—though lots of people appear to disagree. It could be one of many extra unjustly maligned motion pictures of the yr (rocking a lackluster 48% on Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing). It had me dreading my place within the movie-theater seat for the entire proper causes: It’s foreboding; it’s creepy; it’s gross; and, most significantly, it’s usually fairly scary.
And, oh boy, it’s vicious. When people try for good on this film, they exit in a nasty method. As a result of that is vampirism we’re coping with, people usually have a number of deaths which might be horribly unsettling. The solar simply doesn’t dig these newly turned vampires.
The film takes place in 1897 out at sea, as a ship and its crew sail towards England with mysterious cargo aboard. That cargo, in fact, could be Dracula and not less than certainly one of his “wives,” who’s alongside for the trip so he has a snack in between his feedings on crew members. No person is secure on this film, which is unrelenting and cruel in relation to choosing its victims. The mark of a good horror movie is feeling that no person—no matter age, gender or species—is secure.
Director André Øvredal (Scary Tales to Inform within the Darkish) is aware of what is frightening, and his Dracula (Javier Botet) is one unholy beast; it’s a cross between F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, the cave creatures from The Descent, and the factor on the wing of the airplane in George Miller’s phase of the Twilight Zone film. This creature truly bought me to scream out loud within the theater throughout certainly one of its kills. I need to inform you … I don’t do shit like that. I’ve been to loads of motion pictures. You need to put your shit collectively nicely for me to freak out and yell.
In between the atmospheric, nighttime, often-rainy kills, the film is simply OK. A whole lot of scruffy individuals (together with Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi and Liam Cunningham) stand round and speak about what within the hell they will do, and these stretches could be a little boring. Fortuitously, there’s loads of carnage and creeps, and the great scenes outweigh the drab ones.
Maybe The Final Voyage of the Demeter will acquire some form of cult standing or extra appreciation when it turns into accessible for streaming/screaming. Significantly, I screamed throughout this film. That … doesn’t … occur.
