Bram Stoker’s Dracula is one of horror’s most influential novels. Dracula himself has become a mascot for the macabre and monstrous, from movies to television and beyond — even knockoff chocolatey cereal hawkers. The Last Voyage of the Demeter, in theaters this week, aims to be more than another cheap imitation, choosing to elaborate on a mere few pages of Stoker’s book dubbed “The Captain’s Log.” You may wonder how another adaptation of the bloodsucking tale will differentiate itself from the pack, which I’ll leave director André Øvredal to sell:
“[It’s] Alien on a ship with Dracula in 1897 — a huge period piece, but also a claustrophobic story about being trapped with a monster.”
Creating a Feral and Ferocious Dracula
Fabled is Dracula’s migration from Transylvania to England, but hardly as more than a scene or montage in theatrical iterations more focused on befores and afters. Øvredal wanted to embrace the horror movie aspect of Dracula’s international cruise, not overproduced lore seen time and time again. “There are already so many great movies and classic actors and wonderful portrayals of Dracula,” he tells IGN. “I think I read somewhere that [he’s] in the Guinness Book of Records as the most adapted [literary] character ever?” Øvredal is right, which makes his mission to create something fresh, not pungent with decay, a crucial accomplishment. “I was thrilled by how [The Last Voyage of the Demeter] takes a different perspective on what Dracula should be, staying true to the novel, but also [offering] a very different point of view from all other movies that have ever been made about him.”
We’re portraying him like a true monster: the demon, the devil.
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One of the key differences is how Øvredal presents this film’s Dracula. Superstar creature actor Javier Botet brings horror royalty to life as a feral and ferocious Drac, because this vampire is meant to be feared, not fancied. “[We’re] portraying him like a true monster: the demon, the devil. That’s mentioned in the book several times, calling him a demon,” says the filmmaker. The film’s special effects department worked tirelessly to create a Dracula that was a “total standout” from what we’re used to seeing (slicked back hairdo, long black cape, yadda yadda). He’s far more beastly and bat-like. “We wanted to work with biology so that the transparency and the muscularity of the wings, and how it all connects to the body, should be something similar to a real bat.” As the costume evolved, “it was more finessing the ears and the eyes, how drained should [Dracula] look and how much luster in his skin and wings.”
Øvredal also says the veteran Botet’s performance was integral to bringing out the more horrific elements of Stoker’s creation.
“We rehearsed movements,” he says. “We were looking at how does Dracula behave? What kind of speed does he move at? What kind of articulations does he have, both physically and mentally? As with great actors, generally, it's an easy process when you get the right person.”
Speaking of actors, one member of the cast already knew the ropes when it came to the seagoing life. “David Dastmalchian spent time on a real ship for a long time so he really knows how it all works.” reveals Øvredal. And now you know that Dastmalchian lived and worked on an Alaskan fishing boat for a year in 1996. “He's such an enigmatic, intense, and also very physical actor. He pulls the camera in.” The director says that he loves how Dastmalchian can portray complex characters, helping accentuate that tone of darkness that dwells within a couple of other supporting players. “But I also found that he had a sensitivity, too. It's a balance between being able to portray sensitivity and darkness, and he really plays in that aspect.” Dastmalchian has made a name playing oddballs like Polka-Dot Man in James Gunn’s Suicide Squad and Abra Kadabra in The CW’s Flash series, two roles very unlike his turn in The Last Voyage of the Demeter — the latter of which hopefully only cements him further as an actor blessed with infinite faces.
The same can be said about Corey Hawkins, whose only horror appearance to date was in AMC’s The Walking Dead series as Heath. “He's such a sympathetic personality, and we needed somebody [like Corey] to pull the whole movie along,” says the director. Horror is, at its core, driven by the characters and their experiences with terrifying scenarios — characters like Hawkins’ Cambridge graduate accepting ship work in an unjust (read: oppressive) world. “He went all in on the dialect, making sure that he sounded English.”
Letting the Blood Flow
Integral to The Last Voyage of the Demeter is one word: blood. It’s what Dracula craves, and also what horror fans crave. Øvredal embraces an R-rating with plenty of the red stuff, which was a focus while shooting. “I think we couldn't get enough of it. We were like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to get more blood. Give us more blood.’ I don't know how many times that was said,” he laughs. Producer Brad Fischer is a massive horror fan himself, and was in Øvredal’s corner whenever amounts of blood were in discussion. “[The Last Voyage of the Demeter] is about blood, so it has to have a presence. The movie was always dependent on the gruesomeness of the journey.”
We were like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to get more blood. Give us more blood.’
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Another production hurdle Øvredal met head-on was the amount of scenes that take place under moonlight, heavy with shadows and pitch-black shades. The issue becomes figuring out where light exists: “Even if you're setting up a mundane, spooky shot of just an environment, it’s still about where the light is coming from. What is the light doing? How is it shaping the scene? How is it leading the audience to look left to right in the frame or right in the frame?” Light has to hit from the right angle, and audiences have to be able to see what’s happening on screen. “You go back in [post-production]. You shape, reshape some darkened areas and push them further down into nothingness than was originally shot. … It's fun. I love that process. It's the joy of making a horror movie.”
Øvredal’s career thus far has often championed horror, between Trollhunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, but that doesn’t mean he’ll veer into a new genre anytime soon. “I've always loved the genre from when I was a kid. It's really just a good drama that just happens to have supernatural elements,” he says, while pointing out that he sees horror films beyond their gore, gratuity, and gonzo depravity. “I'm fascinated by how people behave when facing something they don't understand, something they cannot possibly relate to, be it Dracula or trolls or whatever. There's no limit to what kind of problem-solving and what kind of stories you can tell, or what kind of interesting people you can tell those stories about.”
You might know where The Last Voyage of the Demeter is steering toward if you’ve read Stoker’s Dracula (or a billion other ways), but don’t let that make you think Øvredal has nothing original locked and loaded. “I love that aspect that you know where you're ending, and I want to show the audience how that happened,” he says. When asked about a possible sequel given how his bloodthirsty voyage finishes, he assures there are no current plans: “That ending isn't really meant to set up a sequel — we wanted to go out on a high of energy. After all that death and destruction and so much pain, we wanted to at least leave the audience with a little bit of positive energy.”
Øvredal confidently controls his own destiny by trusting his horror instincts while telling a tale we already know is doomed by Dracula’s bite. “What is one of the greatest successes in [cinematic] history?” he asks. “James Cameron’s Titanic. You certainly know what's going to happen at the end there.”
Even better, Øvredal’s Titanic has a vampire on board.
Read our Last Voyage of the Demeter review.
