Universal is releasing its latest horror movie, The Last Voyage of the Demeter, on Friday with seemingly little fanfare, but many moviegoers are having fun with the discovery of the IP at the film’s core paired with his mode of transportation. It’s not just a horror movie or a monster movie. It’s a Dracula movie.
Inspired by one terrifying chapter of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (and the second Universal movie to stem from Dracula this year), it follows the demise of the crew of the Demeter, which had been chartered to transport Dracula and his coffin from Romania to England. In the novel, we’re given hints about what transpired through a series of captain’s logs that detail the crew members disappearing one by one until the captain is the only person who remains. When the ship arrives in England, the now-dead captain is discovered strapped to the ship’s helm.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter is being sold as Dracula meets Alien, and the trailer, which was released a few months ago, takes its time revealing who’s behind the grisly disappearances and murders. Nor is it hiding Dracula in promotional material. But with the film more under-the-radar than one might expect around a horror movie about Dracula, few people seem to know that The Last Voyage of the Demeter essentially has a premise that can be summed up as “Dracula on a Boat.”
It’s the rare IP-fueled movie that isn’t trying to capitalize on the source material; you might not pick up Demeter or recognize the ship’s voyage from Romania to England if you only have a passing knowledge of Dracula.
But there’s no denying it: “Dracula on a Boat” and #DraculaBoat are certainly fun to say, even if it’s a far cry from the more ominous tone that The Last Voyage of the Demeter is trying to pull off.
For one, it allows someone else to belt Lonely Island’s “I’m on a Boat.”
Several people used Oppenheimer memes to express the credulity of whether Dracula is even on the boat. (He totally is.)
The Last Voyage of the Demeter? Meh. But Dracula on a Boat? Now people are intrigued.
Not to mention what kinds of questions the title and premise set up for people to lightly poke fun.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter arrives in theaters on Aug. 11.