This is the hilarious marketing copy:
“Based on a single chilling chapter from Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula…”
I guess Universal hasn’t completely given up on their classic monster movie characters.
I mean, if you’re going to make a Dracula side story chapter, this chapter is the one that makes the most sense to go with (or, I suppose, Dracula’s Guest, but that’s much thinner and more anticlimactic). Title seems like pretty crap marketing, though.
Vampire on a ship, I am sold. :)
I think it made for the best episode of the BBC Dracula mini-series. Although the third episode was utter dreck so it was only really competing with the first one, which had moments. I wonder if this can hold up to that one and manage to keep an actual movie-length run time.
I agree. (Although, objectively speaking, the whole of that series was crap. Just ridiculously over-the-top in every way; but it was still a fun watch up until that third episode).
Watching this trailer I got deja vu; I wonder if the director watched that other series or if they’re both being faithful to the novel. Read the novel ages ago and I don’t remember the voyage chapter being detailed or long enough for the run times of a movie/1.5 hour episode.
“Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes vampires on this motherfucking plane boat!”
I think once I figured out that it wasn’t sticking closely at all to the book I enjoyed it a lot more. The first episode really threw me in that regard. Going back I really enjoyed the Demeter episode and quite like the first episode. The third remains totally awful.
And yes, if memory serves, the Demeter stuff in the book largely takes place off screen. There is the captain’s diary but I suppose it makes sense to use it as a jumping off point.
In case it wasn’t obvious, the director is going for an Alien at Sea vibe.
:(
It’s a terrible title. Unless you’re familiar with the source material (Reading! Yuck!) it says nothing,
It’s been ages for me too, but I also remember the incidents on the Demeter were more hinted at than described. I don’t even remember it taking up a whole chapter.
It says “Horror movie on a doomed ship”. What more do you want? Probably better than for not referencing Dracula.
I don’t know why Universal keeps trying to make monsters movies, it’s not like hold copyright for any of the major characters, and in a few years the rights to the movies themselves will begin expiring. More people probably associate the iconic Lugosi Dracula with Sesame Street than the Universal movies.
And good horror movies are usually cheap and stand-alone. If there was some original horror movie on a ship, and than like halfway through I realized it was that ship and the monster is Dracula, that could have been pretty cool. But a Dracula spin-off that’s trying to be a part of a big budget cinematic universe? Yech, who wants that.
This isn’t trying to be part of any MCU-like movie franchise. The Universal Pictures’ “Dark Universe” of connected classic monsters died with Tom Cruise’s The Mummy. This was never intended to be part of that failed universe.
No, obviously this is an Amblin movie. It’s a DreamWorks movie, and it’s where it’s been developed. So it’s not part of that universe, it was never thought to be. It was more a standalone thing.
But it’s the second Dracula spin-off they released this year! I know the Dark Universe thing got cancelled, but movie franchises never die, they only lay dormant for a couple years then get rebooted.
Huh, so this once even has a different actor playing Dracula. Hell if I know what they’re trying to do.
Nothing of the kind. “Last voyage” could mean anything. You could make a rom-com called "Last Voyage of the QE 2’ if you wanted to.
Or maybe they’re just referring to the previous trip?
You could make a lot of movies called a lot things, but “Last Voyage”, to me, doesn’t say romance or comedy.
Maybe it would have been more successful if they called it something like “The Doomed Voyage of the Spooky Ghost Ship”.
It would certainly be an improvement.
RIMSHOT
Seems like a real shame this one has bombed. I’ve not seen it yet but Bloody Disgusting really rated it, despite saying it had issues given we know the ending.
The marketing probably didn’t help it I guess.
I’m usually pretty tuned in when it comes to trailers and announcements, but when someone made a “Dracula on a boat” reference two or three weeks ago, I didn’t know what that was about. Not sure where they marketed this, but it completely went past by me.