31 Days of Horror 2024 Day 20 Last Voyage of the Demeter

 

TITLE-The Last Voyage of the Demeter

SOURCE-Universal Blu ray

For the past 7 or so years I rarely see ads on TV. Most of what I watch is either off dvd/blu ray or streaming. And with streaming when an ad break starts I usually have a book or comic nearby and I read during the ad break. Which is why in the summer of 2023 I had no clue about this movie until a friend was asking if I was going to go see it. After she told me the basic idea behind the film I knew I had to see it. 

Pretty much now I rarely goto a theater to see anything. Not really the price of a ticket keeping me at home it is more lack of a good theater near me. And how now people can't sit through the movie without having to use their phone. Not sure how people dont realize that the bright screen of their phone is just as distracting as talking on it. I just chalk it up to the general public are assholes and morons.

This movie is a neat idea. Taking one chapter from the Bram Stoker classic Dracula,the chapter about Dracula's trip by sea to London,and making an entire film about it.Fleshing out what needed to be fleshed out.

A young doctor barely manages to get passage on the Demeter. After finding a young woman who is almost dead in a crate he realizes something ain't right. 

Then the animals on board the ship start dying and disappearing.  Yep we got a vampire on the ship and where do  you run when out at sea and there is a vampire on the ship?

Well shot and with a great score,this is a throwback to the horror made 60 years ago. A slow build. Where the sense of dread is huge. And when a horrific act happens you are a bit relived to have the tense broke for a short bit.

Not really sure who this movie was aimed at. The friend that mentioned it to me is a huge old horror fan. But she is also a bit older than the average person going to the theater to see a movie. From what I can find The Last Voyage of the Demeter bombed. Not even making half of what it cost to make. 

This Blu ray has a few extras. Including some deleted scenes and an alternate opening. I can see why they used the opening in the film and why the scenes got cut. Then we get a commentary from the director and the producer.

What I wanted was an extra talking about how this movie has been trying to be made since the mid 90s. AFter the writer got inspired by Coppla's Bram Stoker's Dracula which came out in 1992.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter gets a C+