Drácula: Mar De Sangre

They talked about the moorland but didn't show anything.

Also they didn't show anything bah Romania or Bulgaria.

These two factors reduced the atmosphere.

The movie is creepy at times, the settings claustrophobic n the idea of exploring the uncharted portion of the novel is downright solid but the lack of blood n action made me give low ratings.

Also some of the scenes are shot in too much darkness n the kills happens very fast. Some terrible fast cut editing which ruins the fun.

The make up of the Dracoola will remind of Nosferatu 1922 n Salem's Lot.

The characters make dumb decisions. After eventually knowing that the creature hides during the sunlight n inspite of knowing his hiding place, nobody takes the effort to throw his casket in the water nor do they try to search him or destroy his casket during the daytime.

Also why the Dracoola goes after Joseph (the chef) is beyond me.

Just saw the critics ratings for this film on Rotten Tomatoes. Eh? Please ignore them. This film was atmospheric, thrilling, well acted and brutal. The set design was amazing also, so much detail. I can't believe the reviews. Go watch it and make your own mind up. Excellent little creature feature with a great premise and I had a great time.

The critics gripes are that they knew what was going to happen at the end of the film because it was derived from a chapter from the Dracula novel. So this doesn't make it an interesting watch anyway? That is also just a straight up false assumption. Film reviewers have really lost it these days. I have learned a lesson through watching this film first and then looking at reviews afterwards.

I am a huge Dracula fan. To this day, it is still one of my favorite books, one which I've read again and again. So when I saw they were doing a movie based on the Demeter voyage chapter, I was very excited. However this movie just didn't do it for me.

One of the biggest complaints is the run time. It's 2 hours long and you can really feel it. It starts off strong with a solid opening, then doing a decent job building the suspense of the hidden terror lurking in the bowels of the ship. However, instead of ramping things up once we see Dracula, it instead drags it's feet to hit that long runtime. Likewise, the more we see of Dracula, the more the cgi effects look noticeably bad.

My other big complaint is that the movie takes a lot of creative liberty. Tbf in the book, all we really get is a brief captains log, which the movie does quote. But it's obvious the film's writers played the game "well the author didn't say this person wasn't there, so that means we can add them". For instance, the book never says they found a stowaway, but it "also didn't say they didn't find a stowaway " so let's add one, make her a female, and make her to be the only one with knowledge about Dracula while all the men are angry and dumb. The book never said there was child, but it "also never said there wasn't one" so let's add a kid because nothing ruins a horror movie's stakes like a having a kid since you know Hollywood would never approve of killing him off. The book never said they had a random black guy on board who happened to be a secret doctor and knows all about blood transfusion, but it "also never explicitly said this man wasn't there" so let's make him our main character, not the Captain of the titular ship who's log this whole movie is supposed to be based off of.

If you haven't read the books, this stuff probably won't bother you. But if you have read the books, you'll be disappointed the movie's writers played this stupid game to insert modern societal problems into an 1800s Russian shipping voyage. The big problem for me is the more time they devote run time to this trivial messaging about societal problems, the less time they devote to showing the horror and propelling the story, which is the whole point of a horror movie.

Cut this stuff out, the movie is noticeably shorter and has a much better flow. And this isn't a gripe on any of the actors, they all play the roles surprisingly well especially for a horror movie.

The only other Dracula movie I've seen was the original 1931 movie while I was in class, though I was barely paying attention to it, so...

Anyway, this movie was pretty decent and it was enjoyable for what it was. (I got the theatre all to myself, which was fun, but I forgot how big and salty a large bag of popcorn was, so that may have ruined it for me) The acting was fine, the characters were at least mildly interesting, I liked the costumes, and the tension was decent as well.

I do think that Woody Norman did pretty well, his character was probably my favorite overall lol

What confused me a little is that the characters were a bit stupid?? So, Dracula is on the ship (though I don't think they know it's him yet), killing people on the ship, they don't decide to search the crates until later in the movie, and in the middle of the night at that?

However, the movie did manage to get me slightly sad during one of the scenes, which is good because I usually get mad at movies instead of sad.

I'd try to give it a watch if I were you but don't expect a cinematic masterpiece or anything like that.

We've gotten two theatrically released Dracula films this year. Truly we are living in good times.

I was extremely excited for this movie. A gothic horror film on a ship? A golden premise. And, delivers on its premise more often than not.

The film has glowing, gorgeous cinematography, a haunting musical score, and is acted to perfection, with even the child performance being quite good. And I was even more impressed with the production design. The ship creaks and becomes a character unto itself, with eeriness lurking in the shadows.

The writing is mixed, though. The script does make great use of the small location and has sufficient thematic depth and a few strong character beats. But unfortunately it's also bogged down with a lot of empty characters and too many scenes of meandering, repetitive conversation.

And even with the great visual craft on display, I found the scares particularly weak. Not a single one was unpredictable or frightening.

Even with its weaknesses, I implore you to see this film. We need to keep getting fresh films like this that take risks and show us original concepts.