I didn’t have a lot of faith (har) in The Last Voyage of the Demeter and certainly its first twenty minutes had me slumped in my seat… but the movie surprisingly pulls through to deliver a movie with real… bite (har). It’s not the afterthought horror flick I was expecting.

It is set aboard the merchant ship that brought Dracula to England in Bram Stoker’s novel. We get to see the gory details as the small crew gets hunted every night by the hungry vampire.

For a movie where we know the ending, I was worried the audience would always be three steps ahead of the crew. And it did seem to be going that way… but once they are fully aware they are being hunted, the movie picks up speed. It’s never quite the scariest flick, but it has some good (and occasionally shocking) kills.

The Dracula design is not the suave, sexy dude who later hunts Lucy and Mina. Think more Max Shrek / Nosferatu. It’s refreshing to have a vampire in its most murderous and demonic form (since, you know, he doesn’t have to pretend with a captive audience).

The movie is dark and murky as befits a 19th century sailing vessel at night… but maybe a few more lamps would have helped. It’s suitably bloody though with its fair share of ravaged throats. Drac is, indeed, dead and loving it.

The flick is much better than I expected based on a weak introduction and first kill… it could probably lose twenty minutes here and there but is otherwise a very solid vampire flick.

Score: 84