The Last Voyage of the Demeter

I usually taught Frankenstein to my senior British literature students but every once in a while I would opt for Dracula so I have been looking forward The Last Voyage of the Demeter because it is an adaptation of "The Captain's Log" chapter from Bram Stoker's novel.  I went to see it at a late screening last night (why do I do this to myself?) and I really liked it!  The Demeter, under the command of Captain Eliot (Liam Cunningham) and First Mate Wojchek (David Dastmalchain), makes port in Bulgaria to pick up cargo bound for London.  Clemens (Corey Hawkins) is a Cambridge-educated doctor looking to get back to England and is asked to join the crew after saving the captain's grandson Toby (Woody Norman) from being crushed.  Soon after setting sail one of the crates breaks open revealing a young woman, who is near death, buried in the dirt inside.  Clemens begins giving her blood transfusions in order to save her life but after several mysterious events, including the slaughter of all the livestock and the disappearance of crew members, the remaining crew is superstitious about having a woman on board and distrustful of Clemens.  However, when the stowaway Anna (Aisling Franciosi) wakes up, she warns that they should abandon ship because a monster from her village known as Dracula is aboard.  However, Wojchek wants the significant bonus promised if the Demeter reaches London ahead of schedule and they continue on with tragic results.  This is incredibly atmospheric with eerie visuals and an escalating sense of dread created through dramatic sound design (especially when crew members knock on the ship's hull to request assistance) and lighting design (the use of shadows creates so much tension).  There are some really effective jump scares and I almost screamed during a particularly harrowing scene where Dracula stalks Toby.  The attacks are really gruesome (it definitely earns its R rating) and Dracula's creature design is more monstrous than I was expecting but that adds to the terror.  The cast is solid and Hawkins and Dastmalchian, especially, give emotional weight to their roles while Javier Botet is suitably creepy as the creature.  This does suffer from some pacing issues because a few scenes go on too long and the ending is a foregone conclusion but this is a strong entry in the horror genre and I recommend it.