GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★☆ (3.2/5)
Rated: MA15+
Directed by: André Øvredal
Screenplay by: Bragi F. Schut, Stefan Ruzowitzky and Zak Olkewicz, based on “The Captain’s Log” from Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Produced by: Brad Fischer, Mike Medavoy, Arnold Messer
Executive Produced by: Matthew Hirsch
Starring: Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian.
‘Evil is aboard. Powerful evil.’
It’s 1897 when merchant ship, The Demeter is seen off the coast of Whitby, England.
The ship’s sails are torn, the hull blackened and like a ghost ship, there are no surviving passengers.
Based on the chapter, The Captain’s Log from the iconic literary novel, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), this is the tale of the vampire’s voyage from his homeland across the seas to England.
The setting of the film is aboard the ship, where the captain (Liam Cunningham) and his crew, including last minute addition, Clemens (Corey Hawkins), a doctor looking for passage home, find themselves trapped as the horror begins; first the animals are found slaughtered, then the crew of the ship. And there’s no way to escape.
Director, André Øvredal (Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark (2019), Trollhunter (2010), and a recommendation to watch if you haven’t already, The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)) focusses on Dracula as the monster – his visage more bat than man, with glowing yellow eyes and needlepoint teeth.
There is no sympathy for the monster, from the outset, Dracula is cast as the ‘Devil’s Serpent,’ a killing machine – and when the animals are found ripped apart, the audience is set firmly against the undead as Dracula preys on the living who have no hope and no understanding of what they’re dealing with.
Until the crew discover Anna (Aisling Franciosi), a girl they first believe is a stowaway, but after blood transfusions from Clemens to save her, she becomes the crew’s only way of understanding the evil that is sailing with them. She’s not the bad luck that has befallen the ship. She’s a survivor.
There’re clever devices used to ramp-up the tension, firstly those on board trapped as they wait for the sun to set so the film plays out like a slasher formula as Dracula feeds, picking each member off, one by one.
The crew knock on wood to communicate from the bowels of the ship, so there’s this listening out to hear that knock, to hear if someone’s trapped and about to literally be eaten.
It’s dark, raining, the sea throws the ship back and forth and there’s a monster on board: It’s the perfect set-up for a horror movie.
And I really wanted to love this film. I’m a fan of the Dracula genre, and horror-thrillers, and there’s a good cast here – Liam Cunningham as the captain (you’ll recognise as Davos Seaworth from Game of Thrones) has just the right amount of gravitas and scores well for humanity putting the audience firmly behind well, the humans. And the soundtrack adds a foreboding atmosphere, building the tension so there’re some good scares (someone sitting behind me yelped on more than one occasion, which was good fun).
There’s something to be said for watching a scary movie in the cinema where the audience is collectively given a jump.
But because it has that slasher formula, the film starts to feel predictable.