Let’s find out together, in this review dedicated to him, if and how much the idea of Demeter – Dracula’s Awakening worked: will adapting a handful of Bram Stoker’s Dracula into two hours of film really be a good idea?
ORIGINAL TITLE: The Last Voyage of the Demeter. TYPE: horror. NATION: United States of America. REGIA: André Øvredal. CAST: Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian, Javier Botet, Jon Jon Briones, Stefan Kapičić, Nikolai Nikolaeff, Woody Norman, Martin Furulund, Chris Walleys . DURATION: 118 minutes. DISTRIBUTOR: Leone Film Group. CINEMA OUTPUT: 10/08/2023
Count Dracula is, for all intents and purposes, one (if not the) best-known literary character of all time. Even before the whole trend of vampire films, brought to the fore especially in B-Movies and commercial TV series, Bram Stoker’s Dracula first set the tone through the novel of the same name, published in 1897, subsequently with cinematic transpositions of varying, but always fascinating, caliber. Among the most famous interpretations of Stoker’s Dracula we certainly find that of Bela Lugosi, but it is difficult to forget Bram Stoker’s Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1992 and with Gary Oldman lending his face to the Vampire. Monica Bellucci was also there, remember?
No Bela Lugosi | Demeter review
What the subject of this review, Demeter – The Awakening of Dracula, tells is actually a specific part of Stoker’s novel. One chapter, to be exact, which narrates the journey of Count Dracula from Transylvania to England, ready to subjugate a new city where you can find food and resources… tastier. Directed by André Øvredal, the film is currently available on Prime Video and has a very respectable cast, with Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones) in the role of Captain Elliot, for example.
The film is a long flashback that narrates the unfortunate fate of the Demeter, a Russian merchant ship that left the Port of Varna, Bulgaria, four weeks earlier, and ran aground on the rocks in front of Whitby, England. There is no trace of the crew, but the rescuers manage to find Captain Elliot’s logbook, which narrates in detail all the events preceding the ditching of the Demeter. And, as you can well imagine, there is nothing funny in what they are about to read.
Captain Findus! | Revision of Demeter
Captain Elliot and his crew had been tasked with transporting fifty wooden crates of unknown contents from Romania to England. What lies ahead of them, however, is a journey that is anything but simple. The absolute protagonist of Øvredal’s film is Doctor Clemens, a young African-American doctor who, in addition to being definitely the smartest of the gang, is also probably the best written character. However, applause goes to the writers Bragi F. Schut, Stefan Ruzowitzky and Zak Olkewicz, for having managed, after all, to give depth and depth even to characters who in Stoker’s book were nothing more than cannon fodder in the original work.
This is because, we repeat, Demeter is taken from a handful of pages of the original novel, and it is therefore obvious how the screenwriters had to expand and enrich the narrative and characters with elements that were also absent. The character of Anna, played by Aisling Franciosi, is also interesting. a mysterious stowaway that the men find on board, leaking from one of the fifty crates of their cargo. And all sailors know that a woman on board can only say one thing: trouble.
Destination: London! | Demeter review
In short, as you can imagine, Count Dracula is on board and his goal is to get to London. And to do this, obviously, he will have to feed himself, starting with the animals and gradually moving on to the various members of the crew. In the film, the various characters refer to the creature as The Evil One, and his appearance reflects evil incarnate very well. So forget about the brilliant Robert Pattinson of Twilight and its sequels, but also the charm of the aforementioned Bela Lugosi, the Evil One wants to scare both the Demeter crew and the spectators. And we must say that initially he succeeds really well.
The first part of the film works well: the tension is high, the gore is present, but not excessive, the protagonists’ ignorance of the threat facing them exacerbates that already quite high sense of desperation. Imagine being on board a ship, isolated from the outside world and with a traveling companion who is an unknown and terribly lethal creature. The waters are rather rough and the boards of the Demeter creak ominously. Up to a certain point in history.
Won’t that be a bit much? | Demeter review
What we have noticed, however, is that the anxiety build-up perhaps lasts a little too long. Some scenes are definitely too long, especially considering that all the viewers already know how it will end. The second half of the film is decidedly less incisive, the horror elements leave more room for splatter and gore, and the tension is lowered to give the Evil One the opportunity to massacre the crew. Not that there’s anything wrong, actually, but we missed that very successful atmosphere that had accompanied us until halfway through the film.
And the film lasts, it lasts quite a while! Especially because the material from which it is based, obviously, is not designed for two hours of cinematic narration. It works, however, in the company of people who are passionate about horror (or even terrified enough by films of this kind), and it succeeds to let go of the various stumbles into banal clichés that Demeter often runs into. Especially in the ending. No no, we won’t tell you anything!
The premises are good, the implementation needs to be reviewed
Regardless of Demeter’s B-Movie nature, at the end of this review we cannot help but admit that we had fun while watching it. A second part of the film less convincing than the incipit and a decidedly excessive duration for the elements to be narrated do not detract from the value of an attempt to reinterpret a single chapter of the famous novel. If you have an evening to spend with friends and want a modern horror movie, give it a try. Don’t expect a masterpiece, though!
You can catch up with Demeter – Dracula’s Awakening in the Prime Video film catalogue! Let us know what you think of this film below in the comments and stay tuned with us at TechGameWorld.com for all the news and reviews on the world of cinema and TV series! And if you want to save money with your Prime Video subscription, this is the article for you!
Points in favor
- A captivating reinterpretation of the premises
- Varied and well put together cast
- The first part is just as anxiety-inducing as it gets
Points against
- Too, too long
- Clichés everywhere
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