Dracula Movie Demeter’s Last Voyage Unveils Trailer

Bram Stoker’s Legendary Vampire Novel of 1897 Dracula is one of the most adapted works in all of Western literature, so you might think you’ve seen this story approached from every possible angle. This summer, The Last Voyage of Demeter is here to challenge that notion, and we finally got our first look with a new trailer.

Directed by the horror star André Ovredal (Jane Doe’s autopsy, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) from a screenplay by Bragi F. Schut and Zak Olkewicz, Demeter is not an adaptation of the entire Dracula novel, but of a very specific part of the story: the journey that Dracula undertakes from Transylvania to London to begin his reign of terror at Carfax Abbey. In a single chapter of the novel, titled “The Captain’s Diary”, Stoker explains how Dracula gradually preys on the entire crew of the ship who transports him to his new home, but we only get a glimpse of the terror. which is played out on the journey. Now let’s have the larger story.

RELATED: David Dastmalchian teases The Last Voyage of Demeter

“[It’s] the idea of ​​taking this chapter which is basically the scariest chapter in the book and turning the Dracula story upside down a bit by seeing it from the perspective of someone who has no idea what a vampire, and they have no idea what the rules are,” Øvredal told SYFY WIRE ahead of the trailer’s premiere. “They have no idea anything, and they’re just attacked by this creature, we are on a ship on the ocean in the Mediterranean sea in 1897, and they have nothing to defend themselves with and they are stuck. And it was all such a beautiful take on a Dracula story.”

What is the plot of The Last Voyage of Demeter?

It begins with the crew of the Demeter, led by a steadfast captain (Game Of Thrones‘ Liam Cunningham) and his first mate (David Dastmalchian), who are eager to collect the bonus they have been promised if they deliver their mysterious cargo on time. But something anomalous is happening on this ship, something a passenger named Clemens (Corey Hawkins) is determined to figure out, and something a stowaway named Anna (Aisling Franciosi) might very well know.

Universal Pictures released the film’s first trailer Thursday morning, and it explains how each of these characters react to the darkness that threatens to consume their ship, and offers some tantalizing glimpses of a very monstrous Dracula. Basically, he plays like Alien on the waves, and that’s a win on our books.

As you may have noticed, Øvredal and company aren’t shy about the premise of their story at all, keeping the hook of Demeter’s Last Voyage up front rather than trying to gloss over the threat. supernatural in the mystery before the summer of the film. release. For the director, it’s all part of delivering on the promise of good horror.

“You have to show the merchandise,” he said. “You have to put your mark out there in the world and say, ‘We’re here. We’re a movie about the most famous villain in western culture, and we’re also doing it in a different way than you’ve really seen before.’ So we have to look at that in marketing.

How much should a horror movie reveal?

“Every movie I’ve done, this one [question] revealing things is always the number one conversation, what to reveal and what not to reveal,” he continued. “And generally I find that at the end of the day, it’s worth better reveal more than you initially thought. We need the public to understand what movie it is.”

If the trailer is any indication of what we’re about to get, we understand. The Last Voyage of Demeter to be a visceral, often claustrophobic horror journey dominated by the raw power of Dracula seeking blood by any means necessary.

“I wanted to get a really gritty, gritty, realistic portrayal of Dracula right off the bat,” Øvredal said. “Something that’s really intensely wild, because he’s on a boat trying to hide on this big trip for a month. And how does he survive? What are his plans and what’s wrong and how does he deal with it? And even though we see the story from the crew’s point of view, we still follow their story.”

The last voyage of the Demeter hits theaters on August 11.