Dracula’s dark presence has loomed over art and pop culture for over one hundred years already, so we’re never quite surprised when Hollywood decides to find another way to reintroduce the character. Following Nicolas Cage playing the famed vampire in horror comedy Renfield earlier this year, another take is already here with Universal’s The Last Voyage of the Demeter, finally arriving in theaters this weekend after being in development for twenty years. Let’s talk about what critics think about the latest of 2023 new movie releases.
We’ll start off with CinemaBlend’s The Last Voyage of the Demeter review from our own Eric Eisenberg. He gave the movie a two out of five stars, calling it “bland.” Check out some of his thoughts:
… The end result is a repetitive and dull horror movie with little more going for it than a moderately interesting feral approach to its legendary vampire. The ferocity of Dracula increases over the course of the movie as he is made stronger with each victim he takes, though that idea fails to translate into escalating stakes, and without interesting personalities to invest in, the whole ride actually gets duller as the titular vessel gets ever closer to its terminus.
Unfortunately for The Last Voyage of the Demeter, our critic isn’t the only one who walked out of the theater disappointed in the Dracula movie. Polygon’s Joshua Rivera quipped that “Dracula’s Lyft gets 1-star" before saying this:
It’s a film with no vision, a puzzling adaptation that’s so straightforward, viewers might believe every beat comes from Stoker’s novel and not a screenplay imagining what happened between the pages. Maybe the two decades the film spent in development, being rewritten and recast, are to blame; every colorful choice seems to have been wrung out of the script. At every moment, there’s potential for Demeter to become something distinct and interesting, but the screenplay and Øvredal’s direction choose otherwise, embracing straightforward competence over any style or flair.
The movie was helmed by André Øvredal, who has a relatively good track record for horror movies, between 2019’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and 2016’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe. The former CinemaBlend’s Eisenberg gave 4 out of 5 stars. IndieWire’s David Ehrlich also treaded on negative waters when speaking about the new movie, sharing these words:
The truth of the matter is that screenwriter Bragi Schut Jr. has been tinkering with the idea since his time working at a Hollywood model shop in the early 1990s, but his baby must have gotten lost at sea while treading water in development hell over the last several decades, because the derelict Ship of Theseus that’s drifting into theaters this weekend doesn’t reveal any trace of real passion or serious thought. It’s a movie about people who slowly come to realize over the course of several ultra-repetitive kill scenes that a nocturnal monster of some kind is living in their cargo hold (he’s sleeping in a giant crate that might as well be marked “Dracula’s bed”), but never think to, I don’t know, search for him during the day.
Then there’s its vision of Dracula, which The Hollywood Reporter’s Frank Scheck spoke to, calling simultaneously “one of the viscerally scariest” Draculas along with “one of the dullest.” As the critic continued:
His snarling, animal-like creature doesn’t exactly have much personality, feeling so generic that the film could equally serve as an Alien or Predator prequel. He draws plenty of blood, but he doesn’t have much bite.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter reps a great cast including Corey Hawkins, Liam Cunningham and David Dastmalchain, whom CinemaBlend spoke to about his frequent on-screen deaths, but per critics it’s just not enough to raise this film into one of the best horror movies. Collider’s Chase Hutchinson wrote this:
They do their absolute best, with Corey Hawkins especially bringing gravitas to a long overdue leading role, and there is a commendable amount of darkness that the film doesn’t shy away from. However, the more it is held up to the light, the more it begins to burn and crumble before you. There are thrills to be found, but much of the film is made unnecessarily adrift as it careens to its ultimate doom.
While every critic seems to be saying the same thing about The Last Voyage of the Demeter, AV Club’s Matthew Jackson had some positive things to say about the movie. In his words:
…thanks to solid direction, a committed cast, and a central monster that keeps drawing your eye, there’s a lot about The Last Voyage Of The Demeter that works. It’s not the best Dracula film you’ll ever see, but it is a chilling new spin on the character, and a voyage horror fans will mostly be glad they took.
Now, we certainly recommend that if you’re interested in seeing the movie on the big screen you go out and see it and make your own estimation about the movie yourself. The Last Voyage of the Demeter is in theaters now.
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