the last voyage of the demeter

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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, Apple TV.

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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.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

André Øvredal

Corey Hawkins

Aisling Franciosi

Liam Cunningham

David Dastmalchian

Jon Jon Briones

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The Last Voyage Of The Demeter

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, the last voyage of the demeter.

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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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Film credits.

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

About this movie

Ratings and reviews, rate this movie.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter

Cast & crew.

Corey Hawkins

Aisling Franciosi

Javier Botet

Dracula / Nosferatu

Liam Cunningham

Captain Eliot

David Dastmalchian

Lots of gore, death in effective Dracula-inspired chiller.

• Average 5.6
• Reviews 192

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

Based on a single chapter from Bram Stoker's Dracula...

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When and where is the last voyage of the demeter releasing, watch the trailers for the last voyage of the demeter, who's making the last voyage of the demeter, where and when was the last voyage of the demeter filmed, who’s in the cast of the last voyage of the demeter, so what's the last voyage of the demeter about.

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 Ending Of The Last Voyage Of The Demeter Explained

André Øvredal — the director of "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" and "Trollhunter" — returns with a new vision for Dracula in "The Last Voyage of the Demeter."  Based on the chapter titled "The Captain's Log" in Bram Stoker's "Dracula," the film follows the crew of the Demeter ship as they transport cargo to England in 1897. While the early parts of their voyage are smooth sailing, the crew begins to realize that with each passing night, their numbers grow smaller. It turns out that a bloodthirsty creature has been brought aboard and is hunting them down, so the crew must band together and come up with a plan to kill the beast before they reach the mainland. 

After some more comical and charming recent depictions of Dracula , "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" reminds viewers why he's one of the scariest movie monsters. Øvredal brings a chilling Dracula to the big screen in what becomes a harrowing story of survival. Every time night falls, audiences are left in fear of what horrors will come and wondering who will bite the dust the next. Throughout all the scares and sudden turns, there are also some strong and surprisingly emotional story threads with these characters that lead to a gripping and jaw-dropping finale. Let's delve into the ending of "The Last Voyage of the Demeter."

What you need to remember about the plot

Before unpacking the film's tense finale, there are some important elements that influence the fates of the characters and their final bout with Dracula (Javier Botet). When the monster emerges each night, he targets one crew member, draining their blood so that he can regain his power and strength. As he picks off the crew one by one, Dracula goes from being a frail corpse crawling out of the shadows to a fearsome beast with devastating power. Not only can Dracula turn the crew members into his mindless minions just by biting them, but once he has consumed enough blood, he can grow wings and can fly. 

By the time the crew comes to terms with the reality that they're being hunted by a monster, there's only a handful of them left and they've been mentally and physically worn down. They've witnessed most of their companions be slaughtered or turned against them by Dracula, and Captain Elliot (Liam Cunningham) has even lost his grandson Toby (Woody Norman) to the beast. However, crew member Clemens (Corey Hawkins) is able to rally those who remain to form a new plan that'll kill Dracula and keep him from reaching the mainland. But their plan to leave Dracula stuck on the sinking Demeter doesn't go as planned and leads to unimaginable bloodshed.

What happened at the end of the movie

Although Clemens' plan to use Anna (Aisling Franciosi) — a woman who was stored with Dracula as his personal feeding source — as bait to lure the creature out makes sense when he explains it, Dracula also quickly catches on to what they're up to. Dracula not only kills most of the remaining crew — leaving only Clemens and Anna alive – but he causes so much chaos and destruction on the ship that it is now barreling towards the mainland. Eventually, Dracula has Clemens in his claws and is on the verge of killing him until Anna steps in and frees him. This also causes one of the masts to fall apart and pin Dracula into the middle of the ship. Unfortunately, the monster is able to break free before the ship crashes into the mainland and flies away while Clemens and Anna float on debris just off-shore. 

While Clemens is hopeful that the two of them can make it to safety, Anna's eyes turning pale signifies that she's succumbed to Dracula's bite and will burst into flames when the sun rises. Even though Clemens performed a blood transfusion on her, it only delayed the inevitable. Clemens is crushed by this realization, but Anna has accepted her fate and thanks Clemens for helping her fight back against Dracula. Without fear, she sits atop some debris and floats away from Clemens, burning to death slowly when the sun hits her skin. 

What happens between Clemens and Dracula

Although the newspaper headlines seen in the final moments state that there were no survivors aboard the Demeter, we come to learn that there are actually two: Clemens and Dracula. Clemens has made it to shore and is now the only surviving crew member of the ship. While in England, Clemens searches for Dracula — who he believes is still out there somewhere — and he is given some direction on where the creature could be. Clemens has now made it his life's goal to hunt and kill Dracula so that the world can be rid of this monster. But he is unaware that he's closer than he thinks to his vampiric enemy. 

Clemens hears the knocking code used on the ship and feels that it's coming from Dracula himself as a form of taunting. Suddenly, Dracula is shown hiding his horrid face under some clothes and holding the cane that Clemens found in his coffin on the ship. Dracula passes by Clemens causing him to leave his chair and follow him onto the streets. Now, neither Dracula nor Clemens is afraid to make their presence known to each other and their newfound rivalry begins.

What does the end of the movie mean

When the crew talks about what they plan to spend the money earned from the trip on, Clemens delivers a vastly different answer. Instead of wanting to spend it on a new place to live or pleasurable spoils, he says he doesn't care for the money much and hopes to gain a better understanding of the world from his travels. Although he's scoffed at by most of the crew, there's a deeper, more personal reason behind this that plays into Clemens' pursuit of Dracula at the end. When further explaining his experience in life as a Black man, Clemens talks about how he's been looked over simply because of the color of his skin. Despite his getting a great education and being a highly-skilled doctor, he was often turned away or outright rejected for being Black, causing him to become disillusioned by people and the world. 

This explains why Clemens is so obsessed with exploring and trying to gain a better understanding of the world. This mindset also influences his intrigue with Dracula — a being that goes against his more logical thinking and scientific views. Now that Clemens knows that this monstrous entity exists in the world, he wishes to understand its motives and origins so that he can defeat it — which possibly influences his desires to be accepted and acknowledged for his actions rather than rejected for who he is. 

Another explanation

The ending of "The Last Voyage of Demeter" also establishes a pretty grim reality for the world, and Dracula's appearance is a bad omen for humanity. Not only is Dracula free and living amongst the humans, but so far no one knows how to kill him. Even though Clemens survived his fight against Dracula on the Demeter, he isn't aware of how to defeat the vampire since Anna didn't have the answer and none of the weapons they used did anything. Further, if something as monstrous as Dracula exists, who knows what other horrors and evil creatures could exist in this world too? Evil is walking around freely and this could have damning consequences. 

However, there are people like Clemens who are willing to put everything on the line to stop evil entities like Dracula. Clemens is portrayed as the Van Helsing surrogate in this story, and he pledges his life to find and kill Dracula no matter what it takes. Even when Clemens is near death fighting Dracula, he shows that he isn't afraid of him, and his further pursuit of him is meant to act as a reminder of how evil can and should be fought against. While there are powerful entities out there that represent the same kind of evil that Dracula does, there's always a way to fight back, and this is something we see at the end of the film.

What has André Øvredal said about the film and future sequels

André Øvredal is one of the most notable rising forces in the horror genre over the last few years with films like "Trollhunter," "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark," and "The Autopsy of Jane Doe." Now with "The Last Voyage of the Demeter," he's delivered his own horrifying take on Dracula that shows a lot of potential to be something more. Speaking to Bloody Disgusting , Øvredal praised Javier Botet's performance as Dracula and said he was "curious to see how the audiences are feeling about the portrayal of Dracula, which I'm very proud of."

While Øvredal is happy with how the film has come together, the question remains whether he would have the time to continue working in this world if the opportunity comes to a sequel. It was announced that he's no longer set to direct the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's "The Long Walk" and the only project he's currently listed to direct is a sequel to "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark." A lot hinges on the success of "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" but Øvredal clearly isn't opposed to the idea of a sequel, so we'll just have to watch this space to see if further vampire projects come about.

What the end could mean for the franchise

Perhaps the biggest question posed by the end of the film is whether we could see more of this world. Given how this film concludes, there's certainly room for a sequel or even a prequel to be made. With Clemens now on a life-long mission to kill Dracula, a sequel could see these two at each other's throats again. Clemens could be seen trying to help another community that's being terrorized by Dracula or searching for answers on how to kill this demonic entity. We could also possibly get a prequel that fleshes out Dracula's backstory and mythos more and could even be led by Anna since her village was controlled by Dracula for a long time. Given that the film is set in the world of Bram Stoker's "Dracula," other installments could be created to adapt other parts of the novel and further flesh out this world.

What could keep the film's franchise potential from happening

While the film has clear goals for its future, there are things that could keep it from reaching them. The first obstacle the film needs to overcome is its opening weekend at the box office. It releases at a time when both "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" still have a hold over the box office, and there's plenty of competition from the summer blockbusters. The current projections for "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" range from about $6 to $11 million — which wouldn't put it in striking distance of either film based on what they're projected to earn. The film will desperately need some good word of mouth and strong legs to have a good box office run. 

The next factor in "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" being a success is if moviegoers like it. Critics, so far, haven't been too fond of the film, but the audience is often the driving force behind a film's success. The last hurdle for "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" is the competition from other vampire films — including another from Universal themselves. "Eternals" director Chloé Zhao has a "Dracula" film on the way for Universal and Pablo Larraín's vampire film "El Conde" is coming to Netflix in September. So, there's a lot of competition that could steal the film's thunder and keep it from its future ambitions.

What does the ending mean for Universal's desires to reboot their classic monsters

It's no secret that Universal has been doing everything it can to bring its classic monsters back into the limelight for years. After the Dark Universe joined the other failed cinematic universes , Universal faced an uphill struggle. However, through films like "The Invisible Man" and "Renfield," they've seen that there are ways to bring their monsters back without the need for a connected cinematic universe. "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" isn't outwardly expressed as Universal's attempt to bring one of their classic monsters back to life, but it could easily be seen as a way for Dracula's cinematic legacy to continue.

Since "Renfield" fell flat at the box office , the door is wide open for another "Dracula" story to become Universal's next big horror franchise focused on the character. With the closing moments of "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" seeing Clemens begin his pursuit of Dracula, the story could easily continue, either in a sequel or possible future crossovers should Universal reignite their monster universe.

Why the ending gives viewers a different kind of Dracula

While recent depictions of Dracula have highlighted some of his more charming characteristics, or put a comedic spin on his presence, "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" takes the character back to his horror roots. Instead of being seen as this unsuspecting charmer with a hypnotizing power, Dracula is shown here to be more of an escaped demon from hell. His teeth are disfigured and sharpened to quickly draw blood from his victims and he has a pale, emaciated look that will instantly give you chills. By the time Dracula reaches his final form at the end of the film — with his wings and bat-like ears — he looks even more demonic. 

However, what's most interesting about this portrayal of Dracula is that he doesn't change his look when trying to hide among humans. When he is shown in the final moments of the film, he's just wearing clothes that slightly obscure his face to help him blend in. This is interesting since it was established earlier that he controlled Anna's village for years despite clearly standing out. This suggests that instead of using charm and suave looks to control those around him, this Dracula relies more on fear, intimidation, and force to control others — something that is incredibly different from other Draculas we've seen before.

What new mythos comes from the ending

Along with a new physical depiction of Dracula, the ending of "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" also establishes some interesting new mythos surrounding the character and his new pursuer, Clemens. With this Dracula using fear and intimidation to maintain his power, we get a more beastly monster who views his victims as disposable sources of food rather than people. He's much more dangerous to people than ever before and the minions he creates with the virus from his bite are much more violent and destructive than ever before. When Olgaren (Stefan Kapičić) gets possessed, he's shown to be very zombie-like and will go to any length — including self-harm — to do Dracula's bidding. Let's not forget the fact that anyone with Dracula's blood in them will be consumed by flames by the time morning comes around — further evidence that becoming Dracula's minion is deadlier than ever before. 

In Clemens, we get a new type of Van Helsing — one who will go to the ends of the earth to kill Dracula. Rather than have a background as a hunter or someone who's been tormented by Dracula for many years, his feud with Dracula is fresh and his background as a doctor gives him new ways of fighting the monster's control. These elements give the film a sense of familiarity but a newness as well, and the ending puts its own spin on the classic mythos in a way that feels exciting and interesting.

‘The Last Voyage of the Demeter’ Review: A Dracula Movie That’s Intriguingly Old-Fashioned, Until Its Conventional Megaplex Demon Shows Up

André Øvredal adapts a section of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" into what feels like a sea-voyage studio drama from 1966. But his Gollum-with-teeth vampire is right out of the visual-effects factory.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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The strange thing about “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” is that the old-fashioned atmosphere goes right out the window whenever Dracula shows up. In this one, he’s a fast-moving goblin-like creature, with a devil’s head atop a spindly body, which makes him resemble a medieval stone gargoyle crossed with Gollum crossed with some razor-toothed animalistic demon out of a Jason Blum horror movie. He’s played by an actor (the creature specialist Javier Botet), but mostly he seems a product of the visual-effects department. There are shock cuts and savage montages as he rips into the throat of a crew member.

But “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” is strictly prose, and rather plodding prose at that. I appreciated the film’s willingness to take its time, but as Dracula knocks off one crew member after the next, we seem to be watching some rotely garish and not all that scary 19th-century version of “Alien,” or maybe “Mutiny on the Bounty” remade as a slasher film.

Most of the performances are corny enough to feel at home in a pirate movie. There’s the noble Old World captain (Liam Cunningham), the nasty Russian (Nikolai Nikoleff), the callow ladykiller (Chris Walley), the paranoid captain’s mate (David Dastmalchian), the addled chef (Jon Jon Briones), and the captain’s innocent young son (Woody Norman). But Corey Hawkins, who has the lead role of Clemens, a physician trained at Cambridge who’s been shut out of medicine because of his race, has a saturnine glare and a lithe quickness of mind the movie could have used more of. Clemens believes in science and nature; he’s in thrall to learning about the world. The presence of a vampire kind of messes with his view, and the drama, what there is of it, emerges from how the film makes this demonic intrusion feels unprecedented.

Clemens discovers a stowaway, Anna (Aisling Franciosi), who is catatonic with infection, and he uses infusions of his own blood to nurse her back to life. But she never completely recovers, and the other crew members keep showing up as clawed mincemeat. They might survive for a while, but then, instead of turning into vampires, each bitten person has a moment of spontaneous combustion, with embers rising out of their bodies to consume them. That’s the most poetic thing in the movie. The rest of the time, “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” is too explicit, too dawdling yet rapid-fire, too much like other horror films.

Reviewed at AMC Lincoln Square, Aug. 9, 2023. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 118 MIN.

• Production: A Universal Pictures release of a DreamWorks Pictures, Reliance Entertainment, StoryWorks Production Ltd./Studio Babelsberg, Phoenix Pictures/Wise Owl Media production. Producers: Bradley J. Fischer, Mike Medavoy, Arnold W. Messer. Executive producers: Matthew Hirsch, Chris Bender, Anne Rodman, Jeb Brody.
• Crew: Director: André Øvredal. Screenplay: Bragi Schut Jr., Zak Olkewicz. Camera: Tom Stern. Editor: Patrick Larsgaard. Music: Bear McCreary.
• With: Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Javier Botet, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian, Jon Jon Briones, Stefan Kapicic, Nikolai Nikolaeff, Martin Furulund, Chris Walley, Woody Norman.

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The Last Voyage of the Demeter Swooping Onto Physical Media with Cargo Hold Full of Bonus Features

Sink your fangs into a slew of deleted scenes and a commentary track from director André Øvredal.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is officially sailing onto physical media.

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment announced today that the Dracula -inspired creature feature will hit Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital one week from today — Tuesday, October 17 — with a cargo hold brimming with bloodsucking bonus features. Those include a collection of deleted scenes, several behind-the-scenes featurettes, and a commentary track featuring insights from director  André Øvredal ( The Autopsy of Jane Doe ,  Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark ) and producer Bradley J. Fischer ( Ambulance ,  Transformers: Rise of the Beasts ).

RELATED:  Inside The 21-Year Journey to Bring The Last Voyage of the Demeter to the Big Screen

The Last Voyage of the Demeter bonus features announced

• ALTERNATE OPENING  - Commentary available with director André Øvredal and producer Bradley J. Fischer
• DELETED SCENES  - Commentary available with director André Øvredal and producer Bradley J. Fischer:

"Clemens Picking up a Stone in Varna" "Bosphorus and Constantinople" "Clemens Following Huck's Blood Trail" "Clemens and Anna Talk on Deck" "Crew Discuss Where the Beast Is Hiding" "Finding the Corpses in the Crate" "Wojchek Finds the Captain" "Clemens Visits His Father's Grave"

• FROM THE PITS OF HELL: DRACULA REIMAGINED  - Learn how the creative team behind  The Last Voyage of the Demeter  conjured a new nightmare.
• EVIL IS ABOARD: THE MAKING OF  THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER   - Set sail for an exclusive journey inside the making of the movie with the filmmakers and cast.
• DRACULA & THE DIGITAL AGE  - Visual effects supervisor Brad Parker leads a detailed look at the imaginative work that adds fresh layers of fear to Dracula, creates realistic water, and enhances scenery with bleeding-edge VFX.
• FEATURE COMMENTARY WITH DIRECTOR ANDRÉ ØVREDAL AND PRODUCER BRADLEY J. FISCHER

What is The Last Voyage of the Demeter about?

Inspired by a single chapter ("The Captain's Log") in Bram Stoker's seminal Dracula novel, the film takes place aboard the titular merchant vessel, which unknowingly transported Count Dracula from Eastern Europe to the shores of London.

The legendary vampire (played by veteran movement actor  Javier "Javi" Botet ) is forced to leave the comfort of the darkened cargo hold when his meal supply (taking the form of Aisling Franciosi's Transylvanian peasant, Anna) is suddenly discovered by the crew. Emaciated and starving, this horrifically rendered Dracula begins to pick off the hapless sailors one by one.

Corey Hawkins ( In the Heights ), Liam Cunningham ( Game of Thrones ), David Dastmalchian ( The Suicide Squad ), Chris Walley ( 1917 ), Jon Jon Briones ( American Horror Stories ), Stefan Kapicic ( Better Call Saul ), Martin Furuland ( The Last Kingdom ), Nikolai Nikolaeff ( Daredevil ), and Woody Norman ( C’mon C’mon ) co-star.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is currently available to rent or purchase on digital platforms (like  Vudu  and  Apple TV ) without the inclusion of bonus features.

Want more theatrical action in the meantime? Head on over to Peacock for exclusive access to  The Super Mario Bros. Movie ,  Asteroid City ,  Fast X , and  Strays .

• The Last Voyage Of The Demeter
• Universal Pictures

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How David Dastmalchian faced down his real-life demons for The Boogeyman

Opening up about his past struggles with addiction, homelessness, and depression, the character actor maintains gratitude for his string of opportunities: Stephen King adaptation The Boogeyman, Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, and Dracula tale The Last Voyage of the Demeter.

Senior Writer

In Stephen King adaptation The Boogeyman , Air star Chris Messina plays a psychiatrist and widower with two children whose life is terrifyingly altered by a visitor. That unexpected arrival is Lester Billings, played by David Dastmalchian , who describes the man as "even more lost, more pained."

"With Lester comes a story that's not only going to change this family's life but is going to introduce a materialized horror the likes of which the people in this film — and I think audiences — have really never seen before," warns Dastmalchian, 47.

The Boogeyman (out June 2) is among several upcoming 2023 films to feature the Kansas-raised actor, who has a yet-to-be-announced role in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer (out July 21) and portrays a Polish sailor in the Dracula tale The Last Voyage of the Demeter (out Aug. 18). But it's this horror endeavor that frightened him the most.

Dastmalchian grew up reading King and was already familiar with the author's film-inspiring short story "The Boogeyman" from its inclusion in the 1978 collection Night Shift . "I've got it dog-eared on my shelf," he tells EW over Zoom from his book- and comic-filled home office. "Every story I know backwards and forwards."

Even so, Dastmalchian initially turned down the offer to play Billings in The Boogeyman , which is directed by hot Brit horror talent Rob Savage (2020's Host ). "It was really hard for me to think about going into Lester's reality," the actor explains. "In fact, it scared the s--- out of me."

Speaking candidly, he says, "I'm someone who nearly took my life a number of times and that's a theme which this story plays with. So, I actually said, 'I don't think I can do this,' the first couple of times they came round. Then I thought a lot about what Stephen King means to me, and I thought about this director, Rob, and what his vision meant, because we met and talked. And then I said, 'Okay, let's see what happens.' And it was hard, man. It was really hard."

Savage, for one, is very grateful that Dastmalchian changed his mind. "He brought a vulnerability and a nervy unpredictability to the role of Lester Billings, a celebrated King character that could have veered into caricature in the wrong hands," says the filmmaker. "David is one of the most thoughtful, collaborative, and committed actors I've ever worked with. This might be an unrealistic career goal, but I want him to be in every movie I ever make."

It would seem as though other directors feel the same way. This year alone, Dastmalchian has voiced the character Veb in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and played suspected serial killer Albert DeSalvo in Hulu film The Boston Strangler , on top of his previously mentioned credits. The horror lover also plans on co-hosting this year's Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, the magazine's annual celebration of the genre, which premieres on Shudder May 21. Meanwhile, he continues to write his comic book, Count Crowley: Reluctant Midnight Monster Hunter , which he says "explores all the issues that really matter to me, including addiction and mental wellness, while set in the world of late-night horror hosts and monsters."

Dastmalchian, who lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children, counts himself lucky: "I can't believe my life," he adds.

That life has not always been rosy for the actor, who suffers from bouts of severe depression and began using drugs in high school to self-medicate. After graduating, Dastmalchian moved to Chicago and enrolled in DePaul University's theater program but succumbed to heroin addiction in the course of his studies and wound up homeless. He eventually entered a psychiatric facility, followed by rehab, and started working low-paid jobs while he took roles on the stage. Half a decade into his recovery, he got the chance to audition for Nolan's second Batman film, 2008's The Dark Knight , which was shooting in Chicago.

"In 2007, I was five years clean and sober," he says. "I was doing theater for free basically in Chicago and working as a telemarketer. I got the opportunity to audition for this film based upon one of my favorite characters of all time." Nolan was impressed enough by the unknown actor to cast him as an unhinged henchman of Heath Ledger 's Joker named Thomas Schiff.

"One of the greatest filmmakers of all time looked at me and said, 'Yeah, you. Come be a part of this,'" recalls Dastmalchian, still amazed. "My last day of filming The Dark Knight , I remember I walked past the alley where I used to sleep when I was homeless and struggling with my addiction. That experience, my very first time of being on the set of a movie, changed my life in every way you can possibly imagine."

Years later, Dastmalchian gets another call from Nolan, this time for the star-studded Oppenheimer , a biopic starring Cillian Murphy as physicist and so-called "father of the atomic bomb" J. Robert Oppenheimer. "I didn't even think he remembered me. I didn't even think he would know who I was," Dastmalchian remarks of Nolan. "It turns out I was wrong, and he gave me an opportunity to come and play in his incredible creative space, with some of the best actors of our time, all of whom treated me so kindly, and welcomed me, and made me feel like I belonged. Which was humbling because I don't ever feel like I belong, especially when you're amongst the ranks of artists like Robert Downey Jr. and Cillian Murphy and all of these amazing artists."

While it is unlikely that the famously detail-obsessed Nolan would have forgotten Dastmalchian, the director had plenty of chances to be reminded of his talents. In the years between The Dark Knight and Oppenheimer , the actor appeared in a slew of big screen projects, including the first two Ant-Man movies, playing Scott Lang's associate Kurt; three films directed by Denis Villeneuve (2013's Prisoners , 2017's Blade Runner 2049 , 2021's Dune ); and 2021's James Gunn -directed The Suicide Squad , playing the obscure supervillain Polka-Dot Man. It was while shooting the latter that Dastmalchian came across the cute-as-a-button cat who is crawling all over the actor as we talk.

"This is Bubblegum," he says. "We were in the streets of Panama, and this little beautiful cat just kept coming up to us, wanting love, and so now I've got her, and she's part of my family. I tell you what, these last couple of years were really tough with the pandemic, and I lost both of my parents, and we had a lot of difficult times, and it's amazing the magic that a cat can bring to your life. Bubblegum helped me through a lot of my grief-processing."

As has probably become clear by now, Dastmalchian is happy to talk about his mental health issues. The actor is keen to promote the idea that such transparency is a good thing.

"There's so much stigma around that stuff," he says today. "I'm just a character actor, I'm not some movie star, I don't have some massive platform with billions of fans. But whenever I get the opportunity, [I say that] the reality [is] we have to get rid of these f---ing stigmas, we have to talk to each other about this stuff. We're not allowed to be as vulnerable as we need to be, to be healthy, to live the lives that we're capable of living. I think we're getting somewhere, but there's so far to go."

Dastmalchian's description of himself as a "character actor" is accurate. While he played the male lead in 2014's Animals , a semi-autobiographical drama about heroin addicts which he also wrote, nearly all his onscreen appearances have been in supporting roles. Not that you'll hear the actor complaining about that.

"Every character's important, every role's important," he says. "I know it's an old cliché, but I did learn that in Chicago theater, when I was only getting to be, say, Montano in Othello . You know, you've got two scenes to try and actually help propel a story. As a character actor, as someone who's always looked up to the John Cazales and the Peter Lorres of cinema history, I want to be like a slingshot to the movies, you know what I mean? I want to be a guy that helps shoot things forward."

Dastmalchian is thrilled to have found life working in the horror genre and talks excitedly about his role in The Last Voyage of the Demeter , which is adapted from a chapter in Bram Stoker's original novel Dracula and takes place on a ship transporting the vampire-Count to Britain.

"As a horror hound, as a monster kid, Dracula was by far one of my favorite books growing up," he says. "The story of the Demeter, to me, it felt like Ridley Scott's Alien on board a merchant ship in the 1800s. It's great storytelling. It was a hard shoot, the hardest I've ever done. Took a lot out of me physically, because I had to learn how to be a sailor, I had to learn Polish, but thank god I got to be a part of it."

Dastmalchian is similarly enthusiastic about yet another horror film on which he recently worked, Late Night With the Devil . The currently undated movie is directed by Australian brothers Cameron and Colin Cairnes, and gifts the actor another lead role as a late-night talk show host whose attempt to boost his ratings leads to horrifying consequences.

"His show is going to be cancelled because Johnny Carson is blowing him away, so he does in one night all this stuff, trying to save his show, and crosses some lines ethically," he says.

Late Night With the Devil recently won the Audience Award at the horror movie-showcasing Overlook Festival. The film also got a severed-thumbs up on Twitter from Stephen King who described the movie as, "absolutely brilliant. I couldn't take my eyes off it." The author would have equally good things to say about The Boogeyman .

"Stephen King sent a personal email to our director telling him how much he loved The Boogeyman , which is such a badge of honor for me," says Dastmalchian. "Then, he tweeted that he had gotten to see a secret cut of Late Night With the Devil and he wrote this glowing review of that. So, at the moment, I'm having a surreal horror hound transcendence. Stephen King seems to have liked two of the things that I helped make this year and that right there feels like the kind of thing that makes me go, 'Oh! Okay, I can retire.'"

"Although," he adds, "I'll never retire."

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• Dracula sets sail in trailer for horror movie The Last Voyage of the Demeter
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Screen Rant

Bill skarsgård's new horror movie can redeem the monster of a 2023 bomb.

Rising horror icon Bill Skarsgård's upcoming spine-chiller could represent a rebound for one specific horror subgenre after last year's critical bomb.

• Bill Skarsgård's Nosferatu could redeem the failures of past vampire movies, offering a fresh take on the iconic horror villain.
• The upcoming remake focuses on Count Orlok and the eerie atmosphere of the original, promising a spine-chilling experience for fans.
• With Robert Eggers at the helm, expect a visually stunning film that pays homage to the classic while bringing a new twist to the vampire genre.

Bill Skarsgård is quickly becoming one of the first names in horror, and his latest monster movie Nosferatu could redeem a specific 2023 horror flop. Nosferatu 's disturbingly creepy Count Orlok in the gothic vampire tale from director Robert Eggers will not be the first vampire Bill Skarsgård has played , but it could be his most iconic horror role since Pennywise in the 2017 remake of Stephen King's It . However, it's a more recent vampire movie that stands as the most direct comparison to Nosferatu , and its failure could be redeemed by Nosferatu 's anticipated success.

While details like Nosferatu 's release date have been revealed, there has been very little news regarding the movie's plot. Obviously it will borrow heavily from the 1922 German Expressionist film that it's based upon, but with Robert Eggers' unique attention to period detail and spine-tingling imagery added into the mix. The story behind Nosferatu , and its lead character Count Orlok, are based heavily on Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula , and it's the failure of another Dracula -related vampire movie that Nosferatu could atone for when it debuts in December 2024.

Nosferatu: Bill Skarsgård's Vampire Terrorizes Lily-Rose Depp In Horror Remake's CinemaCon Footage

Nosferatu can redeem 2023's the last voyage of the demeter, skarsgård's character is closer to the 2023 movie's version of dracula..

2023's The Last Voyage of the Demeter focused on a specific chapter of Bram Stoker's Dracula , titled "The Captain's Log". It's the story of how the boat that ferried Dracula from his home in Transyvania to London, England came to be deserted when it arrived at port. The 2023 movie starred Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, David Dastmalchian, and Liam Cunningham, and despite its sizable budget ($45 million) and recognizable cast, it was a disaster at the box office . The Last Voyage of the Demeter mustered just $21.8 million, which is partially owed to its poor critical reception.

Javier Botet's vampire creature in The Last Voyage of the Demeter was actually mentioned as both Dracula and Nosferatu in the movie's credits.

Bill Skarsgård will play the villainous Count Orlok in Nosferatu , and his pale, long-fingered vampire comes far closer to the creature depicted in Demeter than Bela Lugosi's traditional Eastern European nobleman from 1933. While the new movie's story will not compare entirely to Demeter , it still looks like it will evoke similar story elements, such as Orlok's stalking of his prey (Lily Rose-Depp's Ellen Hutter). Bill Skarsgård's horror roles have by and large been successful over the years, so he stands a great chance of redeeming The Last Voyage of the Demeter by collaborating with Robert Eggers.

Bill Skarsgård's Nosferatu Can Break The Recent Run Of Bad Vampire Movies

The last voyage of the demeter is not the only recent vampire box office bomb..

Nosferatu can redeem more than just The Last Voyage of the Demeter ; the entire vampire subgenre has suffered in recent years when it comes to big-budget success. Many recent vampire movies have been astounding disappointments at the box office, with very few big-budget efforts failing to register with critics either. For example, the vampire Morbius produced one of the lowest Rotten Tomatoes scores ever for a Marvel character. Nicolas Cage and Nicholas Hoult's Dracula movie Renfield was also a critical disaster, and Jamie Foxx's $100M Netflix vampire hunter movie Day Shift received middling reviews at best.

While the recently-released Abigail has been a hit with critics, financially it has continued the disappointing box office trend for horror movies . Nosferatu can go a long way towards reviving vampires in modern horror , which is sorely needed at the general box office despite a number of smaller-scale films being considered hits. Bill Skarsgård's status as a go-to horror star should certainly help make sure that his Count Orlok becomes a new classic horror villain when Nosferatu hits theaters.

Nosferatu (2024)

Nosferatu is a remake of the 1922 silent film of the same name from director F. W. Murnau. Robert Eggers is crafting his own version of the story for the reboot as writer and director, with Bill Skarsgård stepping into the shoes of Count Orlok. Nosferatu tells the tale of a young woman who falls victim to a vampire utterly infatuated with her.

Max: 'The Last Voyage of Demeter' is the fifth most-watched movie worldwide

I n the age of streaming, some movies have gained a second life when arriving on a platform. That’s the case of this horror film, “The Last Voyage of the Demeter,” which was released last year but now it’s one of the most watched titles on Max worldwide. However, in the US, you will find it on Fubo (which offers a seven-day free trial), and Paramount+.

The supernatural horror film, directed by André Øvredal, is an adaptation of “The Captain’s Log”, a chapter from the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Per F lixPatrol, the film currently holds the global Top 5 spot.

However, when it came to box office performance, the movie didn’t break even, grossing only $21.7 million worldwide against a budget of $45 million. Critically, it also received mixed reviews by critics but fans were more enthusiastic about it.

‘The Last Voyage of Demeter,’ a period horror film to fans of the genre

Starring Corey Hawkins , Liam Cunningham, Aisling Franciosi, David Dastmalchian, Woody Norman and Javier Botet as Dracula, the film is set in 1897 and follows the crew of the merchant ship named Demeter as they sail from Transylvania to London, while Dracula is stalking them.

The story follows a typical slasher film formula, with the legendary vampire killing the crew members one by one. However, to add to the tension, Dracula’s full image isn’t shown at the beginning, but it’s slowly revealed throughout the film.

Øvredal told Collider that he wanted to work “with the dramatic effect of discovery,” and in this case the biggest discovery in the movie is the “evolution of the creature,” so they kept it in the “shadows” in the beginning of the film.

According to the critics’ consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, in which the film holds a 49% score on the platform, the movie is definitely a fresh take on the character but the execution wasn’t that interesting. Meanwhile, the audience thinks the film is a “ solidly scary Dracula movie.”

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• 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 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.

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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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Abigail review – Dracula’s daughter gets kidnapped in fun-sucking horror

There’s some low-stakes pleasure to be had in the first half of the gory new film from the team behind Ready or Not and Scream but things fall apart disastrously

L ast year’s handsome gothic horror The Last Voyage of the Demeter and bombastic Nic Cage comedy Renfield allowed Universal the opportunity to present known IP as something fresh, at least on the surface, stories involving Dracula but told in ways we hadn’t seen before. They represented a nifty marketing strategy for a back catalogue of classic monster movies but both worked better as loglines than finished films – Dracula on a boat, Dracula as a bad boss – and audiences proved as uninterested as critics, the stench of old property distracting from the promise of something new.

As the studio preps a new take on The Wolf Man with next year’s Christopher Abbott-led Wolfman and Robert Eggers’ remake of the Dracula-inspired Nosferatu, here comes Abigail, a poppy reimagining of the little-remembered 1936 horror Dracula’s Daughter. In the contemporary take, she’s a ballerina (Matilda’s Alisha Weir) who gets kidnapped by a group of unaware criminals, hired to keep her locked in a grand old house for 24 hours while ransom money is obtained. But early on, recovering addict and single mother Joey (Melissa Barrera) figures out that something is up and starts to realise that the scared little girl in their care might not be so scared after all.

Abigail comes from Radio Silence, the team who broke out with 2019’s smug yet successful Ready or Not , a gimmicky thriller about a new bride forced to play a deadly game of hide and seek that started with real fizz before turning flat. There’s a similarly precipitous dip here, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett again crafting a fun conceit with returning writer Guy Busick (here writing alongside Stephen Shields), but without the follow-through. It has the same arch comedy-horror tone, as gory as it is goofy, but it’s missing the touch of a real comedy writer (making it the second film this year after Godzilla x Kong where Dan Stevens has to play comic support without the support of his screenwriter). Set-ups for jokes are left as just that and our wait for any form of payoff starts to mirror the plot at large, our wait for a premise to become a real movie proving similarly endless.

What’s frustrating is that, like Ready or Not, it’s directed with more flair and menace than the majority of studio horror released at this time – grand and sleek and, glory of glories, well-lit (!). It’s also set in the kind of sinister remote mansion that recalls an Agatha Christie whodunnit, something the film references with a copy of And Then There Were None, cluing us into another source of inspiration. But as a mystery, the film is a cop-out, guiding us to a big reveal that never really arrives (we’re left with a cascade of “so whats”) and instead, we’re offered the distraction of gore, as if another exploding body might help us to forget that we’re on a long road to nowhere (the runtime is a bloated 109 minutes).

Barrera, who also starred in the same team’s two recent Scream films, is an appealingly earthy heroine, even if she’s cursed with illogical decision-making and, by the end, some discordantly sappy dialogue. Kathryn Newton, who recently suffered through Lisa Frankenstein , is ever-likable (the tone of her sadly underseen 2020 comedy slasher Freaky is something the makers of Abigail should have looked toward) and as the evil child at its centre, Irish actor Weir is a total marvel, a convincingly ferocious and sour little monster even if she’s a little defanged during a messy and maudlin finale which dares to give us important parenting lessons from a vampiric demon.

As the plotting falls apart and the wheels truly come off, there’s nothing that strong direction and a work-hard cast can do to keep Abigail from sucking. There’s a lot of blood here but very little else.

Abigail is out in US and UK cinemas on 19 April

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Episode 407: Last Voyage of the Demeter

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• April 13, 2024 (United Kingdom)
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