Short version: …I wish non-genre movie fans would stop trying to review genre movies. They’re usually not very good at it. THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER is fine.
Slightly longer version: if you think that the only proper aesthetic of the vampire film is epitomized by Francis Ford Coppola’s BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA*, don’t go see THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER. That movie is firmly in the vampires-as-a-symbol-for-disease-and-corruption camp, and doesn’t pretend otherwise. This is a distinctly unsexy, gory, and moody film.
My eldest loved it, and I had a fine old time myself. It’s reasonably close to the bare bones Stoker used in the book itself, and I can accept the two variations from it as legitimate artistic and stylistic choices on the part of the director. I didn’t want a shot for shot recreation of the chapter; I wanted a horror movie involving a vampire on a boat. I got that.
Moe Lane
*A film that I like!
#commissionearned
To be fair, in a time when syphilis was incurable and running rampant, licentious behavior *was* very heavy on the disease and corruption aspect.
We’ve just had antibiotics for four generations, and the sexual revolution for three.
So the linkage is lost to presentism bias and historical ignorance.