Demeter - Il risveglio di Dracula

'The Last Voyage of the Demeter' ended up being a lot better than I expected. I haven't seen a good vampire film in such a long time that I was really starting to suspect the genre had very little left to offer. Naturally then, I went into this film with rather low expectations. The film pleasantly surprised me though.

The film is very well made. We start with a scene from later in the movie. I'm not always the biggest fan of this, but in this case it was needed as there was a lengthy time of set-up at the beginning of the film, where if there wasn't promise of excitement to come, it could've lost some audience members.

Once the horror begins it was reasonably effective. The ship in the middle of the ocean is a truly great setting for a horror movie. There are a lot of night scenes too (vampire movies naturally always have a lot of those) which added to the suspenseful atmosphere.

And outside of the horror there was some decent stuff going on too. Some character's who were actually fairly likeable (unheard of in a modern horror film, right?). Also some very well written dialogue helped flesh things out and kept the less interesting scenes afloat.

The film wasn't afraid to break some boundaries too. Often in films like this you can tell at the start all the characters that are 100% going to be safe, but that wasn't the case here. I was pleasantly surprised by that.

All in all this did about as well with the concept as could've been expected. It's not a film I will likely ever watch again. But it passed two hours for me in reasonably enjoyable fashion. 6.5/10.

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.

Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023) is a movie that my wife and I saw in theaters this evening. The storyline follows the infamous voyage of the Demeter from Romania to London with a mysterious cargo. As strange things start happening around the ship the crew starts poking around the cargo and find a "stowaway" that warns them about an unworldly entity they must escape. Will the crew take the warning seriously or fall victim to whatever is haunting the ship?

This movie is directed by André Øvredal (Troll Hunter) and stars Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton), Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones), David Dastmalchian (The Suicide Squad), Aisling Franciosi (Game of Thrones) and Jon Jon Briones (Ratched).

This storyline, settings and special effects had so much potential. The plot is well set up, the attire and props are perfect, and the cast was well selected. The CGI used to create Dracula and his face were outstanding. There's some really creepy moments in here and some worthwhile jump scares. The kill scenes were intense, brutal and have nice gore and blood splatter. The transformation scenes are good too. However, the movie does run a bit long, I didn't "love" the ending and the entire film I felt like there was something missing and I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Overall, this is a unique and solid addition to the Dracula universe but leaves you with a feeling it was missing something that keep it from being outstanding. I would score this a 6-6.5/10 and recommend seeing it once.

Rogue One is based on a small snippet of a larger story, but managed to expand that small snippet into a fun adventure. This movie does the same thing, but with an R rating. It takes a chapter out of Bram Stoker's Dracula, and turns it into a summer, thriller/suspense movie. I enjoyed this movie for what it was, I would recommend it as a good time.

This is a decent, popcorn summer film. If you go in expecting more or less, you will be disappointed. I went in with low expectations as the movie was not doing well critically. Some critics were lamenting it adds nothing new to the dracula mythos, it doesn't subvert expectations, it doesn't reinvent the wheel. C'mon guys, not every movie needs to be an Oscar contender, can't we just have some fun with Dracula? Critics were too harsh on this movie and are slamming it for what it isn't rather than commenting on what it is. It's a solid 7/10 movie.

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.