Pretty much no monster has had more opportunity in the spotlight in the history of cinema than Dracula. Bram Stoker’s vampire has had a number of guises, mostly handsome and debonair in film and television. But in the novel, and especially in F.W. Murnau’s classic unauthortized adaptation Nosferatu from 1922, the count is a pretty horrifying, monstrous figure. That aspect, along with a whole chunk of the novel not often adapted to film, makes its way to cinemas again in The Last Voyage of the Demeter.
In the below featurette from the riff on the classic story, filmmaker Andre Ovredal and actor Javier Botet discuss how they brought this bestial version of Dracula to life. Well, undead-life.
Ovredal mentions that he wanted this Dracula’s blood addiction to come to the fore, and hence cast Botet, a supremely tall and slender creature performer. You might have seen Botet as the titular haunter in Andy Muschietti’s Mama or the horrifying Tristana Medieros in the [REC] franchise. Dracula here is more a creature than a person, and actually resembles very much Kurt Barlow in the 1979 miniseries Salem’s Lot. Truly as if a bat had taken on human characteristics.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter is an adaptation of a portion of Bram Stoker’s epistolary novel. Most people remember Jonathan Harker going to Transylvania and meeting Dracula, and later Dracula arriving in London. But how did he get there? Well, wouldn’t ya know it, he took a ship. It was called the Demeter in point of fact. Many adaptations skip this section, but Murnau didn’t, and it’s in fact one of the best parts of Nosferatu. We hope The Last Voyage of the Demeter‘s full-length exploration of it does the silent movie justice.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter hits theaters August 11.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.