The Last Voyage Of The Demeter (2023) Dir: André Øvredal
- Ridley Coote
- 7 hours ago
- 2 min read
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André Øvredal's 2023 fantasy horror film was based on just one singular chapter of Bram Stoker's iconic vampire novel 'Dracula', specifically the one which depicts the vampire's journey by sea from Romania to England. This was both exciting and distinctly worrying to me, because, although I adore the text, I wasn't sure if there would be enough meat on the bone so-to-speak. Time would tell.
The CGI was very average in quality, which is just about what I can say about the film's cinematography too. Nothing overly offended me on that front, but I certainly can't claim to have been impressed by any of it either. The sea mist added in post-production looked rather poor if you really looked at it, but was passable if attention stayed on the action. I was a little disappointed by the character design of 'Dracula', but it definitely could have been a lot worse.
When it came to turning a relatively small passage from a much larger story into a feature length film, I knew that adaptation would be the name of the game. Unlike many, I felt like there was certainly a story that could be forged here. However, the narrative that this film provided proved to be incredibly weak and nonsensical. I can see the vision, but, the problem is, I can also see the total lack thereof when it came to executing said-vision. This was a blundering and boring film, with no real idea what it was trying to say.
The characters had very little to them, an relied heavily on thir actors to make them more interesting, something that none of them were able to do consistently. Corey Hawkins starred in the film, but gave the performance of an adequate supporting actor at best. He lacked the charisma required to feel like a main character, unfortunately. The supporting cast weren't much better, with Aisling Franciosi and David Dastmalchian being the only ones who offered anything worth noting. The likes of Liam Cunningham, Chris Walley and the man playing the legendary vampire; Javier Botet, failed to impress.
Overall, I liked the idea of this; a vampire horror in a restricted and isolated location, but I wasn't best pleased with its execution. Unfortunately, this film seemed content to rely upon its iconic villain's name, rather than creating something worthy of it. I was hopeful of seeing something fun, even if it wasn't a classic, but I didn't have any fun watching this. My overriding emotion was boredom, more than anything else.
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