Rating: 3/5
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.
The film follows the Demeter, the ship that carried Dracula across the sea.
Wagon after wagon winds the mountain, carrying wooden crates to the docks.
Captain Elliot (Liam Cunningham) and Quartermaster Wojchek (David Dastmalchian) pick their crew. Clemens (Corey Hawkins), a Cambridge-educated man, offers his science and astronomy experience.
The team assembles. One man, however, backs out of the trip, recognizing a crate’s dragon emblem.
A crate overturns aboard the ship. Clemens inspects the contents but finds dirt. Then, hands emerge. A woman stretches out.
Clemens recognizes she has an infection and requires blood transfusions. He wants to disembark at the next port, but the client has offered a bonus wage for a direct trip. The crew wouldn’t sacrifice that for her.
A Romanian crewman sees a face in the dark. Maggots litter the ground. Inside the ship, shadows race.
A crewman discovers the livestock is dead — their necks torn into.
The rats are gone — something scared them.
The woman awakes. Her name is Anna (Aisling Franciosi).
He is here. We need to get off this boat now.
Thematically, the film explores what we can know vs. what we experience. Clemons trusts books, while Elliot relies on personal experiences, some of which challenge the scientific knowledge of the day.
When Dracula appears, the sailors see him as some vengeful god. Clemens realizes because it feeds and bleeds, it can die.
Like most modern lighting, the filmmakers optimized this for expensive screens. I had to assume there was something on-screen when they first spotted Dracula.
Javier Botet, who played Dracula, went through four hours of prosthetics only for post-production to obscure it with mediocre CGI. The intricate prosthetics give him a bat-demon appearance, visible in some scenes. The CGI reduces him to a StarCraft cut scene.
When GCI doesn’t obliterate a scene, the practical effects are top-notch.
Aisling Franciosi pulls a Nightengale and totes a shotgun. She’s my favorite part of the movie.
Corey Hawkins leads well. His personality isn’t much beyond “science,” but he keeps it grounded.
Bear McCreary’s soundtrack is appropriately generic.
I wanted to enjoy this more. It’s an unexplored horror concept with a long history. It’s not an awful movie, but I can’t join the horror fans who love it.