The Last Voyage of the Demeter - Film Review

I have very fond memories of watching the 1922 Nosferatu many years ago whilst attending university. I've mentioned elsewhere here that my Anthropology course allowed me plenty of free time to  watch films and Nosferatu was one I picked up quite early on. I loved the Murnau classic as it was beautifully shot with stunning cinematography from F. A. Warner and Gunther Krampf. The standout for me was Count Orlok stalking the poor crew of the Demeter, it stayed with me as the synth score on the DVD I had was suitably moody. Little did I know that years later there would be a whole 2 hour film about this scene, which made up a single chapter of the original Dracula novel.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is more of a slow burn creature feature, dragging you down into the damp, creaking hull of a doomed ship which is selected to take a large cargo of boxes to England from Transylvania. Mr Clemens (ably played by Corey Hawkins), the protagonist and audience surrogate of this story, is a highly educated black man and wants to know the world better, so joins the crew.

"The more I see of it, the less any of it makes sense," he says over the crew's first meal, not foreshadowing the events to come at all.

Captain Eliot replies, "The world cares little for sense... Perhaps it is not meant to be understood but rather experienced and accepted."

As they carry their cursed cargo towards Whitby, the crew grow suspicious of the deaths, turning on the woman, newbie and then each other as the storms and lack of food hits.

Director Andre Øvredal crafts a genuinely unsettling atmosphere, making the dark passageways of the ship into a claustrophobic nightmare echoing the silent terror of early vampire cinema. Make no mistake, this is a creature feature that delivers some brutal thrills as Dracula picks off the crew one by one when his food source, an unconscious woman kept in a trunk of dirt, is discovered and given a blood transfusion to save her life. The foreshadowing with the disappearance of rats in board and a genuinely unsettling jump-scare pretty early on sets the mood pretty much from the off.

However, while the tension is thick enough to chew on and the set impressively oppressive, the narrative can feel like it's treading water at times. There are occasionally clunky lines and bits of inelegant exposition but you can forgive that when the dark vibes are this good. It's a shame the film wasn't streamlined and trimmed as I think there is a lean horror film in here but the poor pacing and overwrought dialogue kills the potential it had.

We all know how this voyage concludes but if you're craving a pretty novel take on the Dracula story, then this is worth your time. This is no Bela Lugosi `Blah Blah Blah' meme stereotype but a more feral and wild thing.

Overall, I appreciated my time with The Voyage of the Demeter more then loved it. At over 100 years old, it certainly makes you appreciate the stark power of its cinematic ancestor and that is the mark of a true masterpiece.

The Lady From The Black Lagoon- Book Review

‘The Creature from the Black Lagoon’ is a bonafide classic horror film from Universal Studio, home of classic creature features like Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman, amongst may others. For many horror fans though, the Black Lagoon ‘Gill Man’ creature, or 'Creech' to his friends, is considered the last great Universal monster and that is largely due to its iconic design. This creation elicited much sympathy whilst also terrifying 1950s audiences upon its initial release. What has been less well known is the story behind its creation by a woman, Milicent Patrick. She had been almost written out of film history which is strange considering the cultural impact her design has had on film, especially Guillermo Del Toro's multi Oscar winning 'The Shape of Water'. 

So, why was the only Hollywood monster designed by a woman not bigger news and why wasn't Patrick’s name synonymous in geek-dom? This is the mystery first time author and horror film producer, Mallory O'Meara stepped in to solve as she recounts her fascinating journey to find out how Patrick was almost erased from celluloid history. The premise is fascinating and the tale is engagingly told as we read about O'Meara sifting through history books and Universal records, searching Mormon genealogy databases (whilst offering her afterlife ghost up to a Mormon fella), wading through old newspaper rolls and talking to the remaining studio people or their relatives from the time to find out the sequence of events. 

The author builds on her own experiences and personal connections to tell an intriguing tale about this singular woman who flourished, at least for a while, in a male dominated medium.

We find out that Patrick lived on the William Randolph Hearst estate (on whom, the film 'Citizen Kane' is loosely based) where her father was the superintendent of construction of the expansive property. He socialised and schmoozed with the high and mighty, before upsetting them with his willful and arrogant ways and as a result the family frequently moved around, from prestigious construction project to prestige project.

As a young woman, Patrick was one of the first female Disney animators, working on the Chernabog sequence from ‘Fantasia’ in the final anthology animation sequence set to 'Night on Bald Mountain'. She was also an inbetweener for ‘Dumbo’ and ‘Bambi’ before leaving due to the increased cost of staffing brought about by the animators strike during World War 2.

Patrick was plucky and worked as a part time model, trade show hostess, promotional model and supplemented it all with small acting roles. But we learn that she hit the big-time with her creation of the Gill Man before her role was erased and instead credited by the head of the makeup department, a self-serving and jealous man named Bud Westmore. The mystery about what happened to Patrick after her parting from Universal is the central mystery of the book and it is an interesting journey that needed to be told but it is clumsily written and does feel very padded in places. The book is earnestly but naive written, but that can be forgiven due to the candidness and enthusiasm shown. 

O'Meara expands on Patrick’s life to have a wider conversion about crediting creatives, stereotyping and sexism  and how little has changed until very recently with the #MeToo movement. The book is very ‘now’ in that what it uncovers has implications and repercussions even now.

So overall, I can recommend the book if you can get past the relaxed, informal and almost blog like quality of the writing.

The book is earnestly but naive written, but that can be forgiven due to the candidness and enthusiasm shown for the subject matter.

Christopher Lee and Me

It was with great sadness that I heard that the legendary actor, Christopher Lee, had passed away at the age of 93. He was an actor whose presence crossed  generations, whether it was playing Saruman in LoTR, Scaramanga in The Man With the Golden Gun and Lord Summerisle in The Wicker Man. But for a lot people of my generation and older there was one role which he will eternally be tied to, and that is of the elegant and darkly brooding Dracula.

I'm a child of the 80's and so wasn't alive to witness the British horror boom of the 50's 60's and 70's, however I caught a lot of the Hammer Horror films in my formative years on late night showings on BBC2 and the Bravo Channel.


Watching Christopher Lee's towering performances (he was nearly 6 1/2 foot tall) was something to behold; not all the films he starred in were masterpieces or even good but you could always depend on him to deliver a wonderful performance. The world has lost an actor, like Leonard Nimoy, who young people but also your grandparents will know.... and not many actors have achieved that level of fame. RIP Sir Christopher Lee.