nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

The Last Voyage of the Demeter

pixelburp

I mean if you're gonna adapt Dracula, but not really adapt Dracula, this honestly looks more appealing than that Renfield film with Nicholas Cage I see floating about .

Honestly, I am a huge sucker for these kind of horror films set in enclosed locations with no escape. Especially if there's some extreme environmental factor keeping everyone stuck inside.

Everything from The Thing, to the other The Thing, to more recent schlock like Blood Red Sky. A bunch of character actors stuck on a base, airplane, ship etc. with something monstrous hunting them all? Yes please.

https://youtu.be/6FgUUO9Ztd0

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

[Deleted User]

I’m in

The White Wolf

Big Dracula fan here.

I will probably go to see Renfield tomorrow. I have been looking forward to it since Cage was announced. My feeling on it is if you're not going to do the book accurately then at least do something wild and interesting which Renfield seems to be.

This film intrigued me when announced as well, but I'm not completely sold based on the trailer. It looks like what I expected it to be and that's taking Dracula from 1 Chapter of the book and making a monster film. Could be good, could be bad. All depends on how fleshed out the character is beyond taking out crew member one by one.

Either way it's a good time to be a fan. Still hoping I get my perfect book adaptation one day.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120478442#Comment_120478442

It immediately reminded me of Midnight Mass and its more definitively monstrous vampire; I know Dracula was a beast at various points IIRC - something Coppola's movie used - but rare enough to this day you'll see Dracula as something that isn't a little alluring or seductive.

Guillermo DelToro's novel The Strain went full on with this idea, with his vampirism as an actual, disgusting disease, the vampires pale sexless creatures. There was a TV series, never did finish it though.

The White Wolf

I think in an ideal adaptation there should be both an element of sex and allure to vampirism, and also show the fact it's a disgusting disease. Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series captures it quite well especially in the first book.

I watched The Strain (the TV series) - it leaned a tad too much into disgust for my liking! But when it was good it was great, it certainly had elements inspired from Dracula.

As far as this films goes, it's good to see Dracula as a beast but I just hope they show him to be more than a voiceless predator. I find these adaptations can often go to the opposite ends of the spectrum and can't get the right balance.

Slydice

Wasn't feeling much spooked by the trailer. Maybe they are going for gore and story?

Brief_Lives

Looks good, i'm in..

silverharp

well Universal seems to be on a roll so thats a plus, its not a genre of film I'd go to the cinema for but certainly looks watchable when it leaves the cinema

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120478630#Comment_120478630

I've always hated the vampire as a sex object. Sure, it was hinted at in Bram Stoker's novel and became bolted on with Anne Rice. But I prefer the vampire as a viscous, repulsive, animal myself. Something that needs to be put down rather than envied or attracted to. I'd take Kinski's Nosferatu or the vamps from '30 Days of Night' over most iterations any day of the week.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120551226#Comment_120551226

I dunno about "hinted": I think there's a broadly accepted read of the novel where, like much of Victorian pop-culture, the story acted as a walking metaphor for xenophobia and hypochondria - especially regarding STIs. The Victorians were obsessed with illness, "miasma" and the like (I'd recommend "The Ghost Map" BTW, which charts John Snow's use of maths to track cholera outbreaks in London, combatting contemporary pseudo-science and hysteria). So Dracula being less about sexiness and more that resting puritanical antagonism towards sexuality and arousal in the first place. An ideology that still lives on today TBH. Coppola's adaptation definitely took that angle and ran with it full speed, amping up this sense of vampirism as a terrible, forbidden lust.

I do agree though that Anne Rice was the progenitor to morph that deviance into something more alluring and desirable. Vampires as tragic, sexy people is something I hate - but I'd never lump Dracula into that sub-category. But I have, like yourself, enjoyed those more animalistic vampire stories: 30 Days of Night is a good shout, forgot about that film. There's just something about those arctic locations that make for fantastic settings for horror or thrillers; Midnight Mass was similar, the vampire an unknowable force of nature, not something seductive. The show's monsters were the human characters, not the vampire.

I've even read some theories Stoker was himself gay, with the book a subversive nod towards homoeroticism - but can't say I see it myself (I know nothing of Stoker's personal life so couldn't say how credible the theory of his orientation might be either). If I'm being doubly honest, I kinda found Dracula a bit of a chore to read; definitely one of those "of the time" novels where my modern brain struggled with the format of novel writing back then.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120552890#Comment_120552890

There's probably a thousand different takes on what Stoker was up to when he wrote 'Dracula', but without input from the man himself, they're practically worthless and there's no solid agreement to be found on any of the subtexts that have been put forward by various scholars, much of which was conjured up years after the author had died. In the end all of these musings could simply be the product of overactive imaginations and Stoker simply just set out to write a spooky story about a vampire that made a few quid for him.

In any case, one could read 'Dracula' and have any subtext pass them by quite easily, especially one that's of a sexual nature as there's not much of that in it. There's certainly some romantic elements therein and Stoker wrote more romance works than horror. But overt references to anything sexual (or any of the other proposed subtexts) would be rather hard to pin down, unlike in, say, Le Fanu's 'Camilla'. Although, I would suggest that most 19th Century readers of that story would have had the lesbian aspects fly right over their heads.

But the character of Dracula as sex object really only became a thing with his appearance on the screen in the 1930's, and even then it remained extremely subtle in the Universal movie. But unfortunately (IMO) such a thing has mired the vampire ever since to the point where the classic monster has become tamed into a milquetoast sexual fantasy of an extremely dubious nature.

I've read 'Dracula' three times and one thing I will say about it is that it's a dreadfully written book and one where the titular character disappears for its bulk. It does have its moments and can be quite atmospheric, but after an admittedly brilliant opening section it settles into a turgid series of scrappy information that doesn't get going again until the end.

As for Stoker himself being gay, there's really no proof of that and it's probably just wishful thinking on behalf of certain people. He was a friend of Oscar Wilde for a period, but that in and of itself means nothing. Wilde had many friends in theatre who weren't gay, a number of which vocally opposed his imprisonment for his homosexuality. But that's certainly no evidence that the people writing in good favour of Wilde were themselves homosexual. I think the question of Stoker's sexuality is, more than likely, just another bit of "pink revisionism" in which some have pounced upon singular snippets of extremely tenuous information and bloated it into an unfounded notion in order to claim a famous individual as "one of their own" as it were.

The White Wolf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120552890#Comment_120552890

I always found Dracula an easy enough read compared to others of that time I've read. I think the pacing issues people talk about has a lot to do with the fact the book starts off so strongly.

But I really enjoyed the middle parts where we got to know the camaraderie between the main players. If they actually made an effort they could still make a perfect adaptation that would appeal to modern audiences.

Le Bruise

Trailer looks like 'Dracula' meets 'Alien'...I'm all over it!

Mr Crispy

Another reason to be hopeful.

https://twitter.com/bearmccreary/status/1672010056630693888?s=20

Spon Farmer

I saw part of the trailer and it felt like a straight to digital release (as I said I only saw part of the trailer) but a few weeks it came up in an article about box office taking and apparently this is a big deal for Universal.

Always open to filmmakers trying something new classic characters. Be interesting to see if they make it creepy despite knowing how it all turns out.

silliussoddius

Only about 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, but saw a couple reviews from people into horror that gave good reviews.

Brief_Lives

no irish release date?

Dial Hard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120962377#Comment_120962377

Stephen King rated it, said he wasn't expecting to.

Mr Crispy

Had been a bit worried with the amount of clips they've released. You could probably see half the movie if you watched them all 😂

Having said all that, the elevator pitch of Alien by way of vampires on a ship had me interested from the get go.

pixelburp

If nothing else the clips seem to suggest there's a commendable amount of practical FX going on here, so it gets a thumbs up for that aspect anyway

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120962729#Comment_120962729

In fairness it is based on part of the book, but yeah to drag it out it's basically that. This film has been in production hell almost as long as Vlad has been sleeping.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120962413#Comment_120962413

The film’s been caught up in the collapse / sale of eOne. It’s stuck in distribution limbo and so delayed indefinitely here and the UK. Somebody will probably pick it up for distribution, but nothing concrete yet.

Spon Farmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120962437#Comment_120962437

Stephen King and Guillermo del Toro both loved it so now I am looking forward to seeing it. :)

Space Dog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120963168#Comment_120963168

Stephen King endorses pretty much everything though 😄

Tony EH

Getting mixed reviews. The common complaint is that it's a bit slow, anaemic, and the conclusion to the story is already known.

The White Wolf

Just skimmed through some of the review blurbs there and things seem to be in line with the thoughts I shared previously; if you're going to take the route of focusing a 2 hour film on 1 chapter of a book, then that ambition needs to be matched by a compelling concept and execution.

As a fan I'm sure I'll get it on VOD when it's available, but between this and Renfield, what a disappointing disservice to a character that is already chock full of disappointing disservices.

Agent Coulson

It's become a bit of internet meme

Wonder Woman is having a laugh anyway

https://twitter.com/RealLyndaCarter/status/1689752376037593088?s=20

silverharp

this made me chuckle

https://twitter.com/ERCboxoffice/status/1690161071561334784

The White Wolf

Well god damn, I managed to catch this....and I really enjoyed it.

Cast is very good and you care about most of them, it is surprisingly emotional at times, goes by fairly quickly and Dracula is how he should be, evil with a mocking glee at the horror he's putting up on the ship.

It has a lot going for it, the only criticism I would have is that I would have liked a better design of Dracula, or at least feel more intimidated by him. The actors did a better job of conveying fear than the character himself.

But ultimately, for a film dedicated to 1 chapter, it is extremely impressive.

pixelburp

I finally caught this and it's better than it had been reviewing - but equally, I absolutely saw all the complaints at the same time. The script did somewhat make some jumps to fast-track the tension: there'd be a murder during the night, but a sudden cut to daytime when the characters are only now discussing the murder? Or how it took so long before anyone said hey, maybe we should search the ship during the day? Especially given one of the cast had knowledge of the monster's behaviour and patterns. Just small things like that you knew only happened 'cos they had to pad out the standard "kill one cast-member at a time" trope.

But the production was pretty great & had a nice sense of physicality; it's no Master & Commander but you felt like you were on a ship and you could smell the wood & water at times. The CGI was fine for the most part given the budget level, and I mostly liked Dracula's design; all smirking teeth as he mocked his victims.

Brief_Lives

That was a lot better than i was expecting. Definitely worth a watch if you like the genre.