Don't listen to the snobs, the full-of-themselves hotshots who "run" flimsy, Facebook pages and half-ass, YouTube channels, the sort of clods who even go so far as to say that they've penned groundbreaking, Dracula scripts: you know, stinko ones never meant to see the light of day. With this said, The Last Voyage of the Demeter, a movie that most of these sadistic stuff-shirts denounced sight unseen, is a worthy addition to the Dracula queue and now should be hauled into the all-consuming, Nosferatu craze for insightful, respectful reconsideration.
Released in August 2023, The Last Voyage of the Demeter, indeed, came and went, but those of discerning taste, those who understand the significance of the seafaring segment of Stoker's tale (and do relish, for one, its inclusion in F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu) got the gist and benefited from the offering's extended weirdness, aligning it with other such monster-vessel ventures as Alien, Queen of Blood, Planet of the Vampires ... It! The Terror From Beyond Space, as well as that fine, The Thing/Who Goes There? variant, Horror Express.
For the record, the fleshed-out depiction of Dracula's rocky trek from Transylvania to Whitby Harbour is the gift of director Andre (Trollhunter) Ovredal, scripted by Bragi F. Schult and Zak Olkewicz. For their opus, these consummate artists dispatch the Count on Liam (Dog Soldiers) Cunningham's Captain Elliot; Woody (C'mon C'mon) Norman's Toby; David (Late Night with the Devil) Dastmalchian's Wojchek; Chris (Unwelcome) Walley's Abrams; Stephan (Deadpool) Kapicic's Olgaren; Jon Jon (Ratched) Briones' pious Joseph; Aisling (The Nightingale) Franciosi's Anna; and Corey (Kong: Skull Island) Hawkins' braver-than-brave Clemens. (This is quite an exceptional cast, which excels within the movie's slow-burn, two hours.)
The voyage's deadly results are (lo and behold) gruesome, with a full-fledged, Max Shreck/Orlok-ish Dracula on board, brought to undead life by tip-top, monster-enactor Javier (Slender Man) Botet Lopez, who strikes the right, spring-into-action terror for his Ten Little Indians, kill bill.
The culmination does take some liberties with Stoker's source in its final phase, for it appears that a revisionist path was planned for a sequel, which now won't materialize due to a weak, box-office draw, but so what if it's a stand-alone? What stands is good. It's haunting and virile and shoot, a genuine, Dracula movie with all those neato, Nosferatu trimmings and even a few gracious nods to the Francis Ford Coppola/Gary Oldman adaptation, in particular when the Count turns into an unabated Man-Bat.
In the very least, give The Last Voyage of the Demeter a watch (or even a re-watch) and decide for yourself if your time was well spent. If you don't dig it, fine. You can then embrace the snob ranks, but unlike those who've condemned with pre-biased cause, you can at least share your denouncement with seasoned sincerity.
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