“The Last Voyage of the Demeter,” a new horror film now playing in theatres, is based on the chapter “The Captain’s Log” from Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula.” Told through news clippings and notes from the captain’s log of the Demeter, the chapter details the horrifying voyage that brought Count Dracula to England.
Haven’t read the book? Then think of it as “Alien” on the high seas. A claustrophobic nineteenth century thriller, it swaps out the commercial space tug Nostromo and Xenomorph creature for the merchant ship Demeter and the most famous vampire of all time.
Set in 1897, the story begins when the Demeter is chartered to carry fifty mysterious, unmarked wooden crates, contents unknown, from Eastern Europe to England. “Our charter has agreed to pay a bonus for timely arrival in London,” says Captain Eliot (Liam Cunningham).
The bonus pay will be hard earned by the crew… if there is any crew left by the time they hit dry land.
When someone or something begins attacking the on-board livestock at night, rumors fly amongst the crew. “Evil is onboard,” says Olgareen (Stefan Kapicic). “Powerful evil.”
That evil comes in the form of Dracula (Javier Botet), a 400-year-old aristocratic vampire who feeds on the crew, killing them one by one, to regain his full powers. “The thing wears the skin of a man,” says stowaway Anna (Aisling Franciosi). “In the night it drinks our blood, and he is on the ship. Which means we will never leave it.”
“The Last Voyage of the Demeter” isn’t exactly Dracula’s story. We get some of the usual vampire lore, and he is certainly a presence, but this is the story of the crew fighting against a great unknown. Director André Øvredal takes his time introducing the characters and setting up the situation on the ship before the first kill. Then, he builds tension slowly, shrouding the screen in fog and dark shadows where strange things just might be lurking. When the carnage begins, Øvredal keeps the bloodsucker mostly out of sight, hidden in corners, shot in tight close-ups, building anticipation for the eventual monstrous reveal.
It’s a nice twist on the usual Dracula movie. It eschews the Bela Lugosi vampire model in favor of a more rough-hewn, demonic aesthetic, like Nosferatu, with needle teeth and wings. They rid him of any of the hypnotic charm he may have had in the hands of Lugosi or Christopher Lee. In this film, he is evil incarnate, as though sprung from the deepest, darkest regions of the human imagination.
“The Last Voyage of the Demeter” conjures up its scares with practical effects, with very little CGI or green screen work. Built of tension and fear, it makes for an old-fashioned fright fest, one more interested in simple, old-school scares than heavy special effects driven terror. It’s a little heavy handed in its final moments, as it attempts to set up a sequel, but if the next one is as brutally elemental and frightening as this one, I’m in.
When you think of kid’s books wholesome titles like “Captain Underpants” and “Clifford the Big Red Dog” likely spring to mind. But for 1980s children with a darker sensibility who were too old for “The Addams Family” but too young for “Stephen King,” the “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” trilogy by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell, where must reads. Violent and eerie, the American Library Association reports that the gothic story collections were the most challenged books of the 1990s, which, of course, only made them more appealing to rebellious kids. A new film produced by horror master Guillermo Del Toro and directed by André Øvredal, uses the books as the basis for a new story.
Set in the small town of Mill Valley, Pennsylvania in 1968, the action begins on Halloween. When besties Stella (Zoe Margaret Colletti), Auggie (Gabriel Rush) and Chuck (Austin Zajur) play a prank on the town bully, he looks for revenge forcing them to hide first at a drive-in where they meet new kid in town Ramón (Michael Garza).
The night soon leads them to a spooky house on the edge of town. The decrepit old place was once the grand home of the Mill Valley’s richest family, the Bellows. Now all that remains are dusty ruins and, as the kids discover, a diary of old stories written in blood by Sarah Bellows (Kathleen Pollard), the youngest, cursed daughter of the once powerful family. As strange things happen the kids realize the book is making their worst fears come true. “You don’t read the book,” says Stella, “the book reads you. I’m afraid we woke the book up.”
This movie could be more accurately called “Mildly Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.” It’s a collection of jump scares and creepy elements—scarecrows, spiders and a severed toe—cobbled together to create a teen-friendly flick that owes a debt to the Halloween afterschool specials of yesteryear. It’s Scooby Doo with courser language and better effects; an entry level horror for teens who find the Garbage Pail Kids too intense.
For any boomers who might take the kids or grandkids the “toe stew“ is gross but the scariest stuff comes in the form of background news reports on Vietnam and Nixon’s re-election.
As an anthology type movie “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” is slowed by the supernatural sleuthing of Stella and company as they try to get to the bottom of sad Sarah’s story. Repetition of the legend and lots of shots of Chuck’s freaked out face slow the momentum. During one of these longer scenes I wondered, “When is the pacing building suspense and when is it building tedium?“ By the end credits the background mystery has sucked the air out of what could’ve been a tightly crafted fun movie.
