We just can’t leave the undead alone. It seems every couple of years someone trots out another Dracula update, or a new take on vampires. Some of them are good, some of them are not. The Last Voyage of the Demeter falls into the former. It’s bloody, and it’s fun.

Based on a small five-page part of Bram Stoker’s original Dracula novel, it uses the captain’s log entries to tell the tale of Dracula’s transport to Carfax Abbey aboard the Demeter which is bound for London. The captain of the ship, Eliot (Liam Cunningham) and his first mate, Wojchek (David Dastmalchian) are taking on cargo, a number of crates, filled with soil, and some unexpected stowaways as well as a new ship’s doctor, Clemens (Corey Hawkins) who believes in science more than superstition.

The script fills out Stoker’s chapter quite nicely, introducing us to a group of characters we know will be short-lived. No one aboard the Demeter survives to tell the tale, only the captain’s log hints at what happened.

The story ups the emotional investment by introducing a dog, and a young boy, Toby (Woody Norman) to the tale, and we know it can’t end well for them, as they are all slowly stalked and hunted by the vampire as the ship continues its journey.

Clemens confronts his own fears as he faces the supernatural, and even as Dracula decimates the ship, he struggles to find scientific reasoning for what is happening.

The VFX and practical effects for the film are solid, and the creature design rocks, looking like a blend between Barlow the vampire in the Salem’s Lot miniseries, and Orlok in Nosferatu. He’s a terrifying creation, and honestly, this would have been the type of creature that terrified my imagination as a child.

This one had me from the get-go. I love the story idea, expanding on a tiny section of the classic Dracula tale, and it had Cunningham and Dastmalchian in the cast. I was ready! It’s dark, bloody fun and Hawkins is a great addition to the cast, adding an enjoyable spin to a story that has been hinted at a number of times, but never explored like this before.

And sure there are a couple of changes, or maybe they aren’t changes, since it’s only using a five-page excerpt as its launching point. Maybe someone did survive, but if they did, the characters never shared the story.

I rather enjoyed this one. It’s dark, bloody, has a solid cast, and plays nicely within the classic Dracula tale. It’s a solid entry into the vampire genre of horror.