The public domain can be a scary place for no other reason than it leads to abominations like Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey being able to exist with impunity, although the performance of The Last Voyage of the Demeter should realistically convince studio executives everywhere that Dracula is best left alone for a while.
As one of the two most heavily-adapted fictional characters in history alongside Sherlock Holmes, you’re never too far away from Bram Stoker’s creation appearing in some form of media, but after Universal suffered back-to-back bloodsucking bombs just four months apart when Demeter picked right up where Renfield left off by cratering at the box office, then maybe it’s time for the Count to go down for the… you get it.
An atmospheric opening first act does set the stage nicely, and there’s no shortage of potential in a contained tale of terror set on the high seas that was proudly touted by the key creatives as “Alien, but on a boat and with Dracula,” only for CGI overload to set in as the third act ramps up the ante to extreme levels that also happen to be devoid of tension, atmosphere, thrills, or frights.
Nonetheless, having been shuffled onto VOD just weeks after sinking without a trace in theaters, The Last Voyage of the Demeter has done what all horrors do and immediately struck a rich vein on streaming. Per FlixPatrol, the pointless exercise has cracked the Top 10 on Amazon and iTunes in the United States just 24 hours after being made available for home viewing, even if it’s but a drop of blood in a vast ocean of debut the project will find itself plunged into.
