--- description: Director André Øvredal puts a fresh spin on a single chapter of the iconic horror novel title: How 'The Last Voyage of the Demeter' Revamps 'Dracula' image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b04d1b3cd7cd82e/698a3f6b457a527e79d67db9/Lat-Voyage.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [movies](/tag/movies/) ## movies Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # How _The Last Voyage of the Demeter_ Revamps a Chilling Chapter From _Dracula_  by [Megan McCluskey](/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Staff Writer Aug 11, 2023 3:16 PM CUT  (L-R) Liam Cunningham as Captain Eliot, Chris Walley as Abrams, and Corey Hawkins as Clemens in The Last Voyage of the Demeter (L-R) Liam Cunningham as Captain Eliot, Chris Walley as Abrams, and Corey Hawkins as Clemens in The Last Voyage of the DemeterRainer Bajo—Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment  by [Megan McCluskey](/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Staff Writer Aug 11, 2023 3:16 PM CUT **_Warning: This post contains spoilers for_** **The Last Voyage of the Demeter** **_._** The seventh chapter of [Bram Stoker's](https://time.com/5411826/bram-stoker-dracula-history/ "undefined") 1897 novel [_Dracula_](https://time.com/6271908/renfield-movie-dracula-legend/ "undefined"), titled "The Captain's Log," chronicles the fate of the crew of the doomed merchant ship the Demeter through a series of logbook entries detailing the vessel's disastrous voyage from the Black Sea port of Varna to Whitby, England. Unaware that Dracula is onboard, the captain writes how, over the course of their journey, crew members went missing until just he and the first mate were left on the Demeter. After the first mate caught sight of "a man, tall and thin, and ghastly pale," he jumped overboard rather than die bythe vampire's hand. Eventually, the captain lashed himself to the wheel with a crucifix in hand to try to bring the ship into port. "I shall tie my hands to the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and along with them I shall tie that which He, It, dare not touch," reads the captain's final log entry, which is found rolled up inside a corked bottle in his pocket after the Demeter arrives in Whitby with no one alive onboard."And then, come good wind or foul, I shall save my soul, and my honour as a captain. I am growing weaker, and the night is coming on. If He can look me in the face again, I may not have time to act." _The Last Voyage of the Demeter_, in theaters Aug. 11, takes this chilling interlude in the original story and turns it into a full-length fright flick. "I wanted to make a genuine horror movie about this little part of the novel," says director André Øvredal (_The Autopsy of Jane Doe_, [_Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark_](https://time.com/5640083/scary-stories-to-tell-in-the-dark-movie-vs-book/ "undefined")). "I found that to be a great challenge and a great way of doing something that could be part of \[_Dracula_'s\] huge, wonderful legacy, but wouldn't risk standing next to giant movies \[that have come before\]. It's its own thing." ## The long journey of _The Last Voyage of the Demeter_ Øvredal signed on to helm _Demeter_ from a screenplay by Bragi Schut Jr. and Zak Olkewicz in October 2019, nearly two decades after Phoenix Pictures acquired Schut Jr.'s original script in 2003\. Prior to Øvredal's involvement, a variety of directors, from Robert Schwentke to Neil Marshall to David Slade, had been attached to the project at different points in time. The single chapter is such a captivating one that _Demeter_ producers Mike Medavoy and Bradley J. Fischer say they were determined to get a movie adaptation made no matter how long it took. "_Dracula_ is obviously a very iconic and well-tread piece of IP that's been in the public domain forever. But this particular story was one that hadn't really been dramatized. It's been used as connective tissue in other _Dracula_ adaptations," says Fischer, referencing scenes in 1922's _Nosferatu_ and 1992's _Bram Stoker's Dracula_. "But no one had told the story of what happens on this ship across the body of a single film."  (L-R) David Dastmalchian as Wojchek, Chris Walley as Abrams, and Corey Hawkins as Clemens in The Last Voyage of the Demeter Reiner Bajo—Universal Studios and Amblin Entertainment _Demeter_ traps its characters in a contained, isolated setting at the mercy of an elusive monster, a narrative arc that Medavoy says brought to mind one iconic horror movie in particular. "It reminded me of _Alien_ with Dracula in it. Dracula is the alien on the ship," he says. "That's what drew me to the story." ## Dracula at sea _Demeter_ stars Liam Cunningham as Captain Eliot, David Dastmalchian as first mate Wojchek, and Jon Jon Briones, Martin Furulund, Stefan Kapicic, Nikolai Nikolaeff, and Chris Walley as the ship's crew. It also introduces some additional main players who don't feature in the book: Captain Eliot's grandson Toby (Woody Norman), Dr. Clemens (Corey Hawkins), and a stowaway named Anna (Aisling Franciosi) who is smuggled onboard by Dracula as a food source. The role of Dracula (or Nosferatu) belongs to veteran creature actor Javier Botet, who has terrified audiences for years playing monsters in movies like 2013's _Mama_, 2016's _The Conjuring 2_, 2017's _IT_, and 2018's_Slender Man_. "\[Botet\] breaches that careful relationship between human character and monster," Øvredal says. "He can find intelligence just through body language in how a creature is portrayed on screen."  Javier Botet as Dracula in The Last Voyage of the Demeter Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment That's a quality Øvredal needed in his Dracula, as _Demeter_ paints the vampire as a vicious, bloodthirsty beast rather than the sophisticated, seductive count he often appears as. "Depicting Dracula as a monstrous, more freaky character was very alluring," Øvredal says. "I wanted to lean into the fact that he's lived for 400 years. I didn't want to see a beautiful Hollywood actor being charming and suave. "We also removed the sexuality that Dracula is often depicted with because it's essentially just a survival tale for everyone, including him," he adds. "I wanted to see that he has survived and survived and that he will survive this journey as well because, as we know, the story of Dracula continues on." ## How _The Last Voyage of the Demeter_ ends In Stoker's _Dracula_, the Demeter arrives in England amid a great storm. Witnesses see a large dog disembark from the ship and find only the corpse of the captain still on board. _The Last Voyage of the Demeter_ offers an inside look at all the horrors that play out on the ship throughout its final journey.  (L-R) Corey Hawkins as Clemens and Aisling Franciosi as Anna in The Last Voyage of the Demeter Rainer Bajo—Universal Studios and Amblin Entertainment "One of the great thematic elements of the story that is profound in its horror is the way that Dracula takes from each character the thing that person loves the most, including turning the ship itself into a living nightmare of the sea," Fischer says. "It's not enough that it's sustaining itself off of the blood of these people. It wants them to suffer in a way and enjoys it." However, unlike in the book, the movie ends with one person who was onboard the Demeter, Clemens, surviving the passage and making his way to London with the intent of hunting Dracula down. When asked whether this twist opens the door for a sequel, Øvredal says it would be "quite a revisionist take" on what happens in the book from that point on. "We try to stay reasonably true to the novel in this depiction," he says. "This movie is really about honoring the novel. But if you go further with Clemens' character, he obviously doesn't exist in the book." ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6302588/last-voyage-of-demeter-dracula-movie/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6302588/last-voyage-of-demeter-dracula-movie/"},"headline":"How The Last Voyage of the Demeter Revamps a Chilling Chapter From Dracula","datePublished":"2023-08-11T15:16:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:53:05.966Z","description":"How director André Øvredal adapted a single chapter from Dracula' for his new horror film","url":"https://time.com/6302588/last-voyage-of-demeter-dracula-movie/","keywords":["movies","feature","culturepod"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b04d1b3cd7cd82e/698a3f6b457a527e79d67db9/Lat-Voyage.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b04d1b3cd7cd82e/698a3f6b457a527e79d67db9/Lat-Voyage.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER","caption":"Liam Cunningham as Captain Eliot, Chris Walley as Abrams, and Corey Hawkins as Clemens in 'The Last Voyage of the Demeter'","creditText":"Rainer Bajo—Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6302588/last-voyage-of-demeter-dracula-movie/","name":"How The Last Voyage of the Demeter Revamps a Chilling Chapter From Dracula"}}]}] ```