- Directed by André Øvredal
- Written by Bragi F. Schut, Zak Olkewicz, Bram Stoker
- Stars Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 58 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FgUUO9Ztd0
Spoiler Free Judgement Zone
This was very entertaining, taking a minor part of the Dracula story that usually gets very little movie time and expanding it into a full story on its own. The use of CGI was a little heavy handed, but there are enough practical effects to balance things out. Even knowing how things were going to work out for Dracula in the end, you still root for the characters and hold out hope for them. We liked it very much.
Spoilery Synopsis
We’re told that “In 1897, a Russian schooner was chartered to carry private cargo. Consisting of fifty wooden crates from Romania to England. When the ship arrived, it was derelict.” We open on a group of policemen investigating a ship that’s blown in on the storm at Whitby, England. They recover the captain’s log, and it contains a warning. Credits roll.
We cut back to four weeks earlier when a caravan of gypsy wagons is moving many boxes through town. Captain Eliot and his grandson Toby disembark from the Demeter and start looking for new crew. Clemens tries to join up to be the ship’s doctor but is rejected. The gypsies arrive with their cargo, but they won’t stay past sundown. The ship’s men load the many crates onto the Demeter. There’s an accident, and the captain takes on Clemens anyway.
As the Demeter sets sail, the gypsies are miles away and look back with relief. Toby shows Clemens around, and they meet Huck the dog. Joseph is the ship’s cook. That evening, Mr. Wojchek, the first mate, reports that they’re making really good time for the first day. Captain Eliot says this’ll be his final voyage; he plans to retire and make Wojchek his successor.
Meanwhile, the boxes in the hold look mighty ominous– until one opens and all the ship’s rats run away. All the food livestock goes crazy. Clemens goes to check it out and finds one of the boxes has burst open– it’s nothing but dirt inside. Oh, and there’s a woman inside one of them! Clemens wants to do a blood transfusion to save her life.
While they’re all distracted with this, another of the boxes opens up, and something far nastier than the girl wakes up. Mr. Olgaren sees a strange creature first, but he survives. Huck the dog isn’t so lucky. Joseph finds Huck’s body, along with all the food animals, dead. Nobody wants to stop in at port, because then they’ll lose their promised bonus. Because he’s the newcomer and some of the crew are racist, suspicions are cast on Clemens. Olgaren says there’s a powerful evil on board, “No man did this.”
Toby learns that the girl’s name is Anna, and she’s Romani. She keeps repeating the word “Feed” over and over in her sleep. Joseph notices that even the rats have gone missing. “Something drove them off. A boat without rats– such a thing is against nature.” That night, Mr. Petrofsky has his throat torn out by a big batlike creature.
In the morning, everyone knows about Petrofsky, and Clemens mentions that all the animals had their throats torn out the same way. Anna finally wakes up and says, “He is here!” Because of superstition, only Clemens is willing to talk to the stowaway woman. She tells him about life in Romania and about the creature called “Dracula” and his taste for human blood.
That night, Dracula gets two more crewmen, Larsen and Olgaren, so no one’s driving the boat when a storm hits. Olgaren isn’t dead though he’s badly injured. The captain orders the ship searched for whoever’s done this.
Night falls again, and Toby runs into Olgaren, who isn’t himself; he barely escapes. As they try to subdue Olgaren, they all get a good look at Dracula himself as he drains little Toby dry. Anna finally shoots the door open, but it’s too late for Toby, bitten but not dead yet. Olgaren, tied up to a mast, mentions that he can hear everything. Then the sun comes up, and Olgaren bursts into flame. They all assume Toby will be the next one.
Night falls once again, and Joseph steals one of the lifeboats and leaves. Anna and Clemens start searching in the boxes of dirt. Joseph, far away, learns that Dracula can fly. The lifeboat returns to the Demeter, empty of all but blood.
Toby dies before morning, so they prepare to bury him at sea. The captain has lost all hope at the death of his grandson. He says he thinks he saw the boy move, and then Toby sits up and bursts into flame in the sun, burning the captain.
Clemens and Wojchek decide to start working together to fight the unseen beast. Anna says Dracula has been “rationing” them, one per night. Now, London’s only one day away, so it doesn’t need them anymore. Anna wants to scuttle the ship, but Wojchek says he’ll take care of it. The captain, however, is very much against that idea. He volunteers to take the ship out to the deep ocean, so the creature has nowhere to go.
But first, there’s one more night they must survive. They can see the shores of England. A very mysterious fog suddenly rolls in, limiting everyone’s vision. Mr. Abrams is quickly torn to pieces, and Wojchek takes a fall before he meets Dracula. The captain ties himself to the wheel and goes without much of a fight, leaving only Clemens and Anna.
Clemens comes face to face with the large bat-man, and it’s a very one-sided fight. The two humans soon find themselves thrown overboard during a storm as the Demeter crashes into the rocks near Whitby.
In the morning, Anna and Clemens wake up holding onto a floating mast. Her eyes are all milky; there’s no way to give her another transfusion, so she’s going to change. She says she’s made her choice and burns up in the sunrise.
Later, in London, everyone’s reading about the “Whitby Ghost Ship.” Clemens knows about Carfax Abbey, and he’s planning to go there and kill Dracula. Then he sees the toothy man in the pub with the wolf cane who walks right past him, scratching him on the neck.
Commentary
About the only time I’ve seen the “Demeter” chapter of “Dracula” addressed was in part two of the 2020 BBC version of “Dracula.” That installment of the series was probably the best of the three episodes, so it only makes sense for someone to do a feature film of that mini-story. The isolation and claustrophobia of a ship, along with the superstitious men, make this very tense. The fact that we all knew how it was going to end doesn’t help.
The creature’s look is based on 1922’s “Nosfertu” and he looks and acts like a shaky, weak, batlike animal who is powerful but not getting enough blood, not anything like Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi, or even Gary Oldman. Through most of the film, he’s a CGI creature.
Other than the CGI creature, the performances are all good. Clemens surviving at the end could maybe sort of set up a possible sequel, but that shouldn’t happen. It just ends with him swearing to defeat Dracula, but his character never shows up in the books, so we know he doesn’t.
Overall, we both thought it was very good.