Weekend Watch: The Last Voyage Of The Demeter, Only Murders In The Building Season 3
Deck side Dracula and delightful detective work
Image Credit: Universal Pictures
Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, teenage turtles save New York and Jason Statham faces more giant sharks. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite and Threads/Instagram: @jammerwhite
It had to happen. After unreservedly recommending a new horror movie a couple of weeks ago with Talk To Me, I now find myself in the position of damning one with faint praise.
The Last Voyage Of The Demeter is the latest attempt to bring Dracula to cinema screens, and suffers from that very fact –– there have been so many portrayals of Bram Stoker’s vampire that there is an awful lot of competition. Demeter, sorry to say, while it has plenty to recommend it, pales in comparison to some of them.
Perhaps it would have benefitted from sailing through the development process a little quicker; after, original writer Bragi F. Schut, who retains a credit here, first hatched the idea in the early 2000s.
Still, it has finally docked (in the States, at least), in the capable hands of director André Øvredal, who has proved he knows how to make horror movies. This adaptation of the chapter titled ‘The Captain’s Log’ from Stoker’s 1897 novel, though turns out to be slim pickings.
There’s primarily the challenge of the fact that the audiences largely know the outcome –– the ship ends up wrecked on the coast of Whitby and the fanged fiend survives to continue his bloodsucking ways. After all, ‘The Captain’s Log isn’t the final chapter of Dracula.
Øvredal and most recent credited writer Zak Olkewicz do find a way to do something more with the story, but I won’t reveal that here.
It largely sticks to the basics –– Dracula (here brought to monstrous and effective life by creature performer and actor Javier Botet) charters the sailing vessel the Demeter to carry him (in a crate) plus generous stores of his home dirt from Transylvania to England.
There is much dark muttering about bad omens and even worse signs (one would-be crewmember departs in terror when he spots the dragon logo on the crates –– and he’s already got one milky and a nasty line in facial scarring, so he’s worth listening to).
Our crew, though –– and don’t bother getting to know them that well, since the film largely keeps them sketches and feeds them to the vampire one at a time –– is more worried about the female stowaway they discover. Anna (Aisling Franciosi) is suffering a mysterious malady, and Clemens (Corey Hawkins), who has offered his services as ship’s doctor, starts giving her blood transfusions to try and solve her problem. I’ll give you one guess where it truly lies, and it’s not seasickness or a dodgy ship’s stew.
The director piles on the atmosphere –– his ship is shot in shadows and full of creaking, groaning, dripping menace even before Dracula wakes up. Using Botet and some fantastic physical prosthetics gives Drac a truly threatening presence as he feeds on the crew and grows from weakened plasma addict to calculating creature. The scenes where CGI is instead used never quite work as well.
On the acting front, it’s a mixed bag –– the cast do their best with some cliched, basic characters and while Hawkins has more to chew on (and does well with it) it’s unfortunate that his British accent is so changeable. He sometimes sounds like one of those YouTube videos of a dialect expert switching between regional accents.
On the whole, Demeter is solid if slightly uninspired stuff, for all the effort that the cast and crew put in. I’d only recommend booking passage if you’re a Dracula completist.
The Last Voyage Of The Demeter is in US cinemas now. A UK release date has yet to be confirmed.
Image Credit: Disney+
Let’s finish up, then, in the reassuring embrace of something I can wholeheartedly endorse. Only Murders In The Building has spent the last two seasons providing reliable laughs, suspenseful mysteries and possibly the best use of Martin Short on screen in decades.
That’s partly because he’s teamed with old friend and colleague Steve Martin, the two having a ridiculous, infectious amount of pleasure ribbing each other. And they’re ably matched by Selena Gomez, who allows the show’s writing team (led by co-creator John Hoffman) to blend the old with the new. Theatrical vaudeville meets TikTok.
I expounded upon the set-up in my Season 2 review, and if you know, you know. If you don’t know, take yourself to Hulu in America or Disney+ in the UK and catch up. Season 3, I’m pleased to relate, keeps up the quality levels.
This season, as set up at the end of second, mixes in more theatrical references as Short’s Oliver Putnam finally gets the chance to direct another Broadway show. In the ridiculous murder mystery Death Rattle, he casts a smug A-list movie star (Paul Rudd, playing at a similar level to some previous work but clearly having a blast) and a wannabe, struggling actress called Loretta Durkin, played in a magnificent example of the meta humour that the series deploys sometimes, by one Meryl Streep.
She’s the standout figure so far this season, relishing the chance to play a struggling performer and delivering on both the laughter and emotional fronts.
The team finds plenty for all three main characters to do, with the only downside being that it splits them up for a big chunk of the season, when a major highlight is seeing Gomez’ Mabel deal with Oliver or Martin’s egotistical actor Charles-Haden Savage. A murder amongst the play’s cast is the driving mystery this season, and mostly an excuse for Charles, Mabel and Oliver to re-start their titular podcast, no matter how much danger it might put them in.
Only Murders remains one of the best shows on television, in my opinion, and will surely end up again on Best Of lists come year’s end.
Only Murders In The Building Season 3 has premiered its first two episodes on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK. A new episode will arrive weekly. I’ve seen five of the 10.