The success of Bram Stoker’s groundbreaking 1897 novel Dracula was due to many factors, but the sheer, dramatic power of the writing was not one of them. The novel meanders, it drifts, it sacrifices prose style to form, it is too busy showcasing various scientific and supernatural wonders to focus on making each page compelling. There is one exception to this general weakness, however, and that is the chapter on the legendary count’s voyage to England aboard the Demeter (a ship named after the Dimitri, a real ship that ran aground on the coast of Whitby just a few years earlier). Presented in epistolary format as the captain’s log, this chapter is an exercise in how to tell a simple story well. It’s the scariest part of the book and has long attracted filmmakers, having played a brief but memorable role in the 1922 adaptation of Nosferatu. When it was announced that the film was to be adapted by André Øvredal, a modern master of suspense, expectations were high. Unfortunately, despite a very capable cast, this adaptation hasn’t had much momentum.

It’s hard to say exactly what went wrong, but the most obvious culprit is the script. Co-writer Zak Olkewicz worked on Bullet Train and many of the same problems are present here, from the superficially drawn characters to the reliance on action scenes to drive the plot (which has little to do with Stoker’s original) rather than letting the plot drive the action. The tension that should come from being trapped far from help with an unknown, relentless threat (Stoker relied on reports of ships ravaged by disease) quickly gives way to the far more conventional theme of fear of a monster that just doesn’t resonate on the same level.

To be fair, Stoker’s story didn’t focus heavily on character development for those on the doomed ship, so Øvredal and Olkewicz had to work largely from scratch. Casting Liam Cunningham in the role of the captain feels like a shortcut, given that he played a very similar character in Game of Thrones. He doesn’t do much differently here, but his general affability makes him easy to sympathize with. The real focus of the film is the character of Clemens (played by another former Thrones member, Corey Hawkins), a young doctor who handles his journey home to England in more dramatic fashion than expected, and here the script and performance fit well together, providing a hook for the medical dialogue essential to unraveling what’s going on. Clemens also takes responsibility for a strange stowaway when she’s discovered, an anemic young woman who behaves suspiciously in every way imaginable. She is played by the always impressive Aisling Franciosi, who brings an ultimately predictable role to life with her usual intensity.

There’s not much to say about the rest. The talents of David Dastmalchian and Stefan Kapicic are largely wasted. Javier Botet, who has delivered some memorable monsters in the past, never quite comes into his own as the Count, who feels like a cookie-cutter monster – except for some beautifully staged shots that accurately capture moments from FW Murnau’s opus. Although we do get a bit of the stormy weather that is obligatory in all ship movies and is of course important towards the end, the film lacks the powerful atmosphere of the Norwegian director’s previous works and the crew of the Demeter never feel sufficiently threatened by the elements. If you didn’t know better, you’d think the film was made by someone who had never seen the North Sea.

All sorts of reasons have been put forward for the film’s delayed release in the UK, where it eventually premiered at Frightfest 2024. The main reason is probably more prosaic, but one can’t help but wonder if audiences’ greater awareness of what that sea looks like played a role. It’s also odd that Whitby itself isn’t used at the end, given how well-known it is and how little its appearance has changed since 1897 – the occasional car or modern outfit cropping out doesn’t seem like difficult work with today’s technology. This level of accuracy shouldn’t be essential, of course, and yet it adds to a deeper sense that we’re not seeing the real thing, or, worse, that we’re not seeing something. credible. Fantasy absolutely has to have this in order to work.

So much of it falls short of its potential that one wishes the film could be remade by the same team with a better script and perhaps more time. Who knows how long it might be before the Demeter sets sail again. Unfortunately, this time it ran aground.

Reviewed on: 24 Aug 2024