Ever since the launch and immediate death of Universal’s Dark Universe, the studio has been doing something entirely against the current trends of the film industry. Instead of grasping at straws for an interconnected universe of some sort, it’s just going out and making high-quality, individual horror films starring its classic movie monsters. The next in line (again) is Dracula who, as the new trailer shows, is returning in The Last Voyage of the Demeter.
Returning might be the wrong word as The Last Voyage of the Demeter is billed as an original story for everyone’s favorite blood-sucking count. The film switches the Dracula premise from a sexualized terror into a closed-room horror, placing Dracula on a boat sailing from Carpathia to London with an unsuspecting crew of sailors. Adapted from a single chapter from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the movie finds the Demeter under attack each night from a mysterious force and the ship eventually shows up in London a charred wreck, with no crew. That may sound like a spoiler, but it’s literally in the press release and the title pretty much gives away what’s going to happen anyway. It’s not the Maybe or Maybe Not Last Voyage of the Demeter.
The film stars Corey Hawkins (In the Heights, Straight Outta Compton) as Clemens the Demeter’s new doctor, Aisling Franciosi (Game of Thrones, The Nightingale) as an incredibly unlucky stowaway, Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones, Clash of the Titans) as the ship’s captain, and David Dastmalchian (Dune, Ant-Man) as the Demeter’s first mate. Joining them on the ill-fated voyage are Jon Jon Briones (Ratched, American Horror Story), Stefan Kapicic (Deadpool, Better Call Saul), Nikolai Nikolaeff (Stranger Things, Bruised), and Javier Botet (It, Mama). The movie is directed by André Øvredal, who delivered us the fantastic Troll Hunter and the underrated Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.
As the trailer threatens, The Last Voyage of the Demeter will release in theaters on August 11.
