Produced by: Zach Cregger, Raphael Margules, J. D. Lifshitz, Roy Lee
Starring: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, Harvey Guillén and Rupert Friend.
‘Smile. Act happy.’
Josh (Jack Quaid) and Iris (Sophie Thatcher) are the perfect couple.
They meet in a grocery store where Josh fumbles his way into Irises heart.
It’s a sweet, meet cute.
‘I just want you to be happy, Josh,’ Iris tells him.
Then the relationship begins to fray.
The love a little needy.
Josh, despondent to Irises attention.
When Josh and Iris drive out to an isolated lake house to spend time with Josh’s friends, Cat (Megan Suri) and her rich Russian boyfriend, Sergey (Rupert Friend) and Eli (Harvey Guillen) with partner Patrick (Lukas Gage), Iris is afraid she’ll embarrass Josh.
Josh tells her to smile, act happy.
She does her best.
The innocent Iris who couldn’t lie, even if she wanted to, is someone to feel sorry for.
Until the doll made to serve turns up covered in someone else’s blood.
There’s twists and turns in Companion, with moments of violence amongst the tongue and cheek; comments like, ‘I know it must be a lot to process.’
Companion feels a little like a Barbie version of, Ex Machina with the subtitles of manipulation replaced with overtones of domestic violence.
Yet the tone of the film is light, holding back on the ridiculous so it’s a watchable film but made more for entertainment than depth.
Or if there was depth, it wasn’t a message that resonated. Maybe something like, Beware of treating your partner like a doll because they might grow a brain and turn on you.
Starring: Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Sam Jaeger, Matilda Firth, Benedict Hardie, Ben Prendergast, Zac Chandler, Beatriz Romilly and Milo Cawthorne.
‘It’s my job to protect you.’
There’s a build to Leigh Whannell’s reimagined Wolf Man.
Set in rural Oregan, Blake (Christopher Abbott) is living a farm life with his father.
There’s a, ‘No Trespassing, there’s nothing here worth dying for,’ sign on the gate.
It’s 1995.
At 07:00, father and son go hunting only to find themselves stalked by a creature just out of sight. Only a movement, a glimpse through the crosshairs of a shotgun. A growl.
Hiding, father and son see the condensation of breath rising above a door with scratch marks left as a warning.
It’s a frightening existence, a young boy growing up with a survivalist father communicating with a neighbour via radio about the sighting of the creature seen just out of sight like an apparition.
As soon as he’s old enough, Blake leaves the land to move to the city where 30 years later he lives with his successful journalist wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and young daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth).
Currently ‘in between’ jobs, Blake dedicates his life to looking after his daughter.
After his missing father is presumed dead, the house in Oregan is left to Blake.
To try and close the distance growing between husband and wife, Blake convinces Charlotte that going to the farm would help bring the family closer together.
Until a single scratch makes a once loving dad and husband become a monster.
Returning with another universal classic monster character after the success of his previous monster film, ‘The Invisible Man,’ Whannell states, ‘These classic monsters have endured for a reason […] Something about them is just too fascinating, creepy and mysterious to go away.’
There’s a clever device used here, to show the infection taking hold of Blake, with the light focusing on the monster he’s about to become.
He’s dying but doesn’t know it yet.
Words become jumbled but sounds are amplified so even the crawl of spider legs across a wall beat a heavy drum.
Even the perspective of a car accident is at an angle so the audience can feel the characters’ upturned world.
Working with cinematographer Stefan Duscio, the evolution of the infection is shown by adjusting the lighting using different lenses, so Blake’s night vision is seen in contrast to how his family sees the world, sees him, changing.
So the audience can see both sides of the evolution, Whannell stating, ‘One would live in the human world, and one in the animal one.’
The idea of a werewolf remake wasn’t very exciting to me, and the family drama felt heavy handed at times, but I was won over by Whannell’s focus on the evolution of infection rather than a monster baying at a full moon.
Whannell’s signature jump scares, and what I appreciated the most, the perspective of change as the family becomes more terrified of their once loving husband and father makes, Wolf Man worth a watch.
Written for the Screen & Directed by: Robert Eggers
Inspired by the Screenplay:NOSFERATU by Henrick Galeen
and the NovelDRACULA by Bram Stoker
Produced by: Jeff Robinov, John Graham
Produced by: Chris Columbus, p.g.a., Eleanor Columbus, p.g.a., Robert Eggers, p.g.a.
Starring: Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgård, Aaron Tayor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney.
What is the dark trauma that even death cannot erase? A heartbreaking notion. This is at the essence of the palpable belief in the vampire. The folk vampire is not a suave dinner-coat-wearing seducer, nor a sparkling, brooding hero. The folk vampire embodies disease, death, and sex in a base, brutal, and unforgiving way. This is the vampire I wanted to exhume for a modern audience.
-Robert Eggers
‘Blood is the life.’
Come to me, come to me.
You, you.
The wind blows through the sheer curtains.
I swear, she promises.
It’s a dreamy yet stark beginning; the girl, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) in a trance as she awakens Nosferatu (Bill Skarsgård) from his slumber to become an awoken corpse, walking upon the earth.
A corpse with appetites.
There’s a nightmarish quality to this gothic tale. This is not a romantic version of a vampire story. This vampire is a plague.
Jumping from 1830s Baltic Germany to years later shows Ellen married to Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult).
Newly home from their honeymoon, Thomas’ employer, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney) sends Thomas into the depths of Transylvania to complete a transfer of title to an ancient descendant from a long blood line; the count described as, eccentric.
For extra money, Thomas is willing to go even as Ellen begs him not to.
It’s the travelling to Count Orlok’s (Nosferatu) castle that mesmerises; the silence of Thomas walking down a road through an ancient forest as snow falls.
The beat and chink of horses pulling a carriage through the dark, the tilt as the world shifts, the perspective bending to the will of Nosferatu as the carriage door slowly opens an invitation.
Then the wolves that follow.
It’s an invitation to a new world that’s dark, where fire casts shadows of reaching fingers and pointed nails and nightmares of blood.
The soundtrack feeds the mood of foreboding, the rise and fall of breath.
It’s moody movie.
Composer Robin Carolan states, ‘There’s a lot of dread and claustrophobia in the film. The score helps with the feeling of escalation, and of this thing that you can’t quite see but that you sense is closing in on you.’
Nosferatu knows Thomas is married to his bride. Nosferatu travels across the ocean to reclaim Ellen. She knows he’s coming.
Inspired by the Screenplay: NOSFERATU by Henrick Galeen and the Novel DRACULA by Bram Stoker, there’s the same lines of story, the travel of the husband to Transylvania to transfer the deed of a new home, the long-lost love.
There’s the best friend, here, Anna Harding (Emma Corrin) who wants to protect Ellen from the call of the monster.
But this is an inspiration not an adaptation so there’s something new here.
Unlike the tease of humour in the Frances Coppola film, like the unforgettable scene where a vampire’s head is cut off, a gruesome scene, that cuts to the professor tucking into a roast dinner – a well-timed shock to evoke a giggle. There’s no humour here in Nosferatu.
This is cinematic horror.
There’s a spare feeling to the angles of panning, the movement of characters, the endless corridors of a castle that resonates with Bram Stoker’s classic novel, where Nosferatu is nothing more than a monster.
Collaborating with production designer Craig Lathrop, cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, costume designer Linda Muir, and editor Louise Ford, all of whom worked on The Northman, The Lighthouse, and The Witch, Eggers has created something that builds into a vision both magical and horrific.
Produced by: Stacey Sher, Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, Julia Glausi, Jeanette Volturno
Starring: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East, Topher Grace, Elle Young.
‘How do you feel about awkward questions?’
Seeing Hugh Grant play a villain in a horror movie is a bit of a treat, especially when he flexes his storytelling skills.
Meet, Mr. Reed. A man in search of the one true religion.
Mormon missionaries, Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) take a break from door knocking and looking to recruit converts to sit on a bench, facing a huge mountain talking sex and if the magnum condom is actually as advertised, massive.
It’s two innocent girls talking about something unexpected yet gives insight into their character – Sister Paxton showing a naive curiosity, Sister Barnes from the streets of Philadelphia with a tougher backstory where she lost her dad to illness.
After tolerating yet another humiliating show of people’s dislike or misunderstanding of their calling, ‘they think we’re weird,’ the two Sisters’ ride their bikes through the snow and rain to knock on the door of a potential convert.
Sister Paxton can barely hide her determination.
It’s the little things that hint of Mr. Reed’s intention.
‘I’ve never had a Wendy. I mean, met a Wendy.’
The film’s foundation is word play, dialogue and the dance of theological argument; but the build of suspense is about the close up of the eyes, the sharpness of a look. Of looking too closely.
The tension builds with the back and forth between the Sisters as they come to understand the game Mr. Reed is playing is a trap. And it’s the realisation of the game Mr. Reed has trapped them into playing that heightens the suspense – the surprise of each character as they reveal themselves in dialogue that twists through intellectual debate about religion in order to navigate a way through the psychology of a madman who has gotten lost in his search of the one true religion.
He’s not wrong. And neither are they.
It becomes a matter of argument. Of faith.
Most of the film is set in the house of Mr. Reed. A deceptively simple stop to highlight the dialogue and closeups of facial expressions. To show the fear of: Belief or Disbelief.
Both are terrifying.
Hugh Grant states, ‘I found Heretic to be daring, not just because it questions a lot of things that many people hold sacred, but for the fact that it’s set in one house over the course of one long night and features a lot of talking — hardly normal practice for a horror film.’
The house itself becomes part of the game.
Director and writer, Scott Beck (also screenwriter, along with Bryan Woods of, A Quiet Place (2018)) states, “We had to figure out the psychology of Reed early on in order to understand why his house appears the way it does, serving as a kind of weapon against his young visitors,” says Beck. “Reed is God-playing in a way, pulling these characters through each room so it feels like a gauntlet or a game, consistently evolving to worse and worse places. It became about marrying the character of Reed with the production design and finding a methodology behind it to show how his mind works.”
Heretic is unique in that it’s a storyteller thriller. Not explosive but a well-rounded creeping poetry based on theological argument from a man driven mad by the search for meaning.
For me the film peters out a little at the end but as Beck states, ‘Hugh has quietly become one the greatest character actors working today,’ making Heretic worth a watch.
Written by: Christopher Golden, Mike Mignola, Brian Taylor
Based on:Hellboy by Mike Mignola
Produced by: Mike Richardson, Jeffery Greenstein, Jonathan Yunger, Les Weldon, Rob Van Norden, Yariv Lerner
Starring: Jack Kesy, Jefferson White, Adeline Rudolph, Joseph Marcell, Leah McNamara, Martin Massindale, Suzanne Bertish.
Screwed, chewed and tattooed.
In this fourth instalment of Hellboy, it’s 1959. And Hellboy (Jack Kesy), along with Bobbie Jo Song (Adeline Rudolph) from the bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence (BPRD), are on a train transporting an arachnoid that is more than just a spider.
The opening of, Hellboy: The Crooked Man, is fast-paced. The arachnoid breaking free, the scene out of control as the train dislodges from the track, landing Hellboy and the certainly-has-a-thing-for Bobbie in the Appalachia Forest, lost.
The storyline meanders until landing on the re-negotiation of a soul. Tom Ferrell (Jefferson White) losing his soul when he happens upon a beautiful witch (Leah McNamara) bathing in the river in his younger days.
The witch encourages Tom to make a deal with the devil, where the bone he holds in his hand when he sees the devil becomes a lucky bone saving him from injury during the war.
In 1959, Tom comes home to the Appalachia mountains to search for his family and girlfriend Cora (Hannah Margetson) whom he left, trying to escape the pact he made all those years ago.
The forest is full of witches, serving, The Crooked Man.
When alive, The Crooked Man was made rich playing both sides of the Civil War. Hanged, his reward from those who live in the mountains, The Crooked Man was returned by the devil to collect souls, receiving a copper penny for each soul, including Tom’s.
The only sanctuary in the mountains is the old church where blind Reverend Watts (Joseph Marcell) holds the dark forces at bay.
The passage of the film is earmarked with chapters that don’t really signpost the story:
‘The Lucky Bone’,
‘Witch Ball’,
‘The Hurricane’.
But lend a fable to the storyline, like the witch acknowledging the screen as the audience watches through the eyes of a crow as she explains the spell of making a witch’s ball.
There’s trickery with the camera work, the perspectives adding a foreboding feeling:
Guts splatter across the lens of the camera.
Sudden darkened scenes click to switch from one place to another.
There’s that Hellboy flavour to, The Crooked Man but there’s also a distinct feeling of a glossing over, creating a superficial tone.
Hellboy’s mother’s introduced into his origin story, the film clicking into this other dark world where she hangs in suspense, tortured. A giant crow represents the devil as he incites her pregnancy with Hellboy.
It’s another dimension to the film.
But the threads of the storyline barely hold together in this movie.
Hellboy, the character, is strangely monotone, with a rare wisecrack, ‘Smells like death. And birdshit,’ so it didn’t seem like Hellboy at all.
But there is a unique strangeness to the film.
It’s dark and creepy but so very disjointed. Which makes me think of a piece of meat.
Starring: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid.
‘Pretty girls should always smile.’
A film of extremes, The Substance is a commentary about Hollywood’s middle-aged, white male’s view of the female form.
There is a male version of, the Other: a beautiful young male doctor introduces an aging fitness guru, Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) to The Substance, himself a demonstration to the Oscar winning actress that she can create a better version of herself.
‘It will change your life.’
Goes to show that men are feeling the push to be beautiful as well. But here the focus is on the aging actress, Elizabeth.
The action of ‘the substance’ is shown by the injection of green liquid into the joke of a raw egg. The yoke then pushes out another yoke, like a clone of itself.
And the film continues with this demonstrative view of the procedure, of the process of aging, to the birth of a young body; the splicing of a pupil into two, to another eye growing within another, all shown in macro, close so there’s no-where else to look but at the unfiltered image of the beautiful juxtaposed with the grotesque.
Director and writer, Coralie Fargeat states, ‘Bodies here are going to be tyrannized, ridiculed, destroyed, the same way I truly believe society destroys women with all the rules that we are silently taught to follow.’
‘Women’s bodies. THE SUBSTANCE is a film about women’s bodies.’
After Elizabeth Sparkle is told by Harvey (Denis Quaid) – while feeding his face with prawns, sound included- the producer of her fitness show, that at age 50, It Stops, Elizabeth can’t help but think a better version of herself could be the answer to her lack of self-worth.
Elizabeth is the Matrix, the Other is Sue.
They are one person.
This is a visceral birth, with close-ups of blood, injections, the splitting of the spine to the gush of another pushing outwards from Elizabeth’s lifeless body.
To the high impact beauty of the Other, Sue.
It’s all pink shiny leotards and perfect bodies – Sue becomes the fresh new face of fitness. She’s new and she’s young and she’s perfect.
It takes 7 days for Sue to rule the world. And as human nature dictates, Sue wants more.
The concepts of the film are portrayed with clever devices, aging is shown with a static view of Sparkles Hollywood Star cracking in the pavement over time. Of people walking across the star, admiring the star, to then show snow and rain and dirt and feet and food being spilled across her star. Like time has forgotten her face. To the giant image of Elizabeth in her apartment with the fractured glass around her eye – a loss of perspective, her self-hatred pinned up on the wall.
It’s an interesting title, The Substance, the focus on the outer beauty and social comment about aging, about what’s supposed to go where, replacing the true substance of a person with a chemical that births a younger, fresher you. Makes me wonder about Picasso’s cubism and his deconstruction of perspective.
Coralie Fargeat takes apart the idea of beauty and creates a satire with Elizabeth Sparkle using the mantra, ‘Take care of yourself,’ that Sue imitates with a wink because what is taking care of yourself when the expectation is to have medical procedures to try to stay young forever?
Fargeat comments, ‘This movie is going to be bloody gory. And it’s going to be bloody funny at the same time. Because I don’t know any stronger weapon than satire to show the world the absurdity of its own rules. And most importantly: I believe it’s going to be bloody timely. This is what this movie is about in the end. A liberation. An empowerment.’
Throughout the film, there’s an evolution of the grotesque as the weight of society’s expectation is perverted into an embrace of the gross with too much enthusiasm for my taste, to turn a fascinating film with a difference into something so awful it’s laughable.
Longlegs is one of the creepier serial killer movies I’ve seen.
The film is created with odd camera angles, the texture of the film, stark.
There’s a quiet tone to the film as FBI Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) makes her way through the case of a satanic serial killer, AKA Longlegs (Nicolas Cage): a killer who doesn’t leave a trace.
The only reason the FBI know about Longlegs is because he leaves a note. A cipher.
Agent Harker is able to decipher the notes because Longlegs breaks into her house and leaves her the solution to the code.
And then the dance between Longlegs and Harker begins.
The toneless affect of Harker blankets the film in a monotone, making the feeling flat. It’s a strange device but I get the connection to the life-sized dolls that are introduced later in the film; however, the dampening of Harker made her character borderline dull.
Aside from the flat affect, this is a carefully crafted film with thought put into the build, the montages of crime scene photos, the sometimes up-side-down perspective, the quiet then screech of strings, all to build that unnerving feeling.
Then add Nicolas Cage as Longlegs spouting the bizarre while looking directly into the camera so it’s like Longlegs is speaking directly to you as you watch the movie and you get one unique film that gets under your skin because it takes risks in the storytelling.
On rare occasions when a film has a particular poetic flavour, I’ll re-read my notes and take that as a synopsis:
A corner camera angle, looking through the front windscreen and side window of a car.
A snowy forest.
A little girl watches from her bedroom window.
Just the lower half of the face, a weirdly made-up face, a powdered face. A male’s high voice.
Screenplay Written by: Greg Erb, Jason Oremland, Jeff Wadlow
Produced by: Jason Blum, Paul Uddo, Jeff Wadlow
Starring: DeWanda Wise, Taegen Burns, Pyper Braun, Betty Buckley, Tom Payne, Veronica Falcón and Samuel Salary.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t finish our game.’
I walked into Imaginary with low expectations – a killer teddy bear?
It’s got to be a parody, right?!
Aside for the overacting at times, and mention of a ventriloquist little girl because how is her imaginary friend speaking without the little girl moving her lips?
Again, I use question marks, I know. But it’s a questionable storyline that is somewhat successful.
From the same producers as M3GAN (2023), I went back and re-read my review and I wasn’t sure how to feel about M3GAN either. The premise is such a stretch, I wonder how it can’t be absolute trash, but somehow there’s a hook that keeps you watching.
For M3GAN, the humour made the film watchable, here, it was more about the scary, and yes, surprises along the way.
Imaginary opens quietly. A flickering light down a hallway. A bloodied woman escapes from a trapdoor in the wall – ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t finish our game,’ she says.
Enter Jessica (DeWanda Wise). She has nightmares and wakes next to her husband, Max (Tom Payne).
Jessica is the stepmum to Max’s two daughters, Alice (Pyper Braun) and Taylor (Taegen Burns).
Alice is endearing.
Taylor is hard work.
Most of the film focusses on the family dynamic.
After a scary start, Imaginary unpacks the relationships of a step mum struggling with change, getting to know her new daughters while moving back to her childhood home.
It’s here that Alice meets the teddy bear, Chauncey. Her new best friend.
Her imaginary friend.
‘Meet Chauncey.
He’s not imaginary.
And he’s not your friend.’
Without giving too much away, there’s more then an evil bear here; there’s thought put into childhood imagination and the relationship between children and the imagined entities that become their friends – the theory introduced by creepy neighbour, Gloria (Betty Buckley).
There’s a surreal dimension to the filming that echoed, Insidious (2010), in scratching the door to another world where those unwary get trapped.
And there’s a few surprises that keep up the entertainment, unfortunately some of those twists fell flat.
But in spite of the silly here, there’s some genuine scares, so in comparison, there’s more of a focus on the creepy here than M3GAN (which became funny more than scary).
There’s backstory to Imaginary, making the film a better watch than expected.
Screenplay by: Peter Sattler and David Gordon Green
Based on the Characters Created by: William Peter Blatty
Story by: Scott Teems, Danny McBride, David Gordon Green
Produced by: Jason Blum, David Robinson, James G. Robinson
Starring: Leslie Odom, Jr., Ann Dowd, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, Lidya Jewett, Olivia Marcum and Ellen Burstyn.
‘The power of Christ works through all of us.’
Created as a sequel to the Academy nominated (first horror film to ever be nominated for Best Picture) ‘The Exorcist’ (1973), The Exorcist: Believer finds Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), the mother of Regan, alone without her daughter who was possessed all those years ago.
After publishing a book about her experience of seeing her daughter undergo an exorcism, releasing her from the demon, Pazuzu, Chris loses Regan again when her daughter can’t forgive her mother for sharing her story with the world.
Walking into the cinema, I wondered if Believer was going to be a legacy movie; like the reboot of the Halloween franchise, Blumhouse is creating, The Exorcist franchise, but I found the legacy aspect here a red herring.
The reminder of Regan was more a touchstone, a cameo, not a continuing thread.
The Exorcist: Believer follows new character, Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom, Jr.), first seen taking photos of fighting dogs in Haiti.
He captures the stills of violence well, his curiosity in the capture of life, while his pregnant wife interacts with it. She’s a peaceful character, meditative in her wander through the streets, the markets.
A little boy pulls her away for a treat. A blessing.
A ritual to protect her unborn child: Angela.
Then an earthquake strikes, the chaos of sound rising and falling, images flipping; the peal of a bell sounding through a muffled deafening after the world begins to crumble.
Then back to Victor. He has to make a choice.
There’s a build to the story, the foundation of the father and daughter relationship a contrast to the inevitable possession of daughter: Angela (Lidya Jewett).
And her friend, Katherine (Olivia Marcum).
Two young girls, two families, a circle back to Haiti and ritual, a circle back to the catholic church to perform the exorcism.
To understand what is happening to his daughter, Victor reaches out to Chris MacNeil, to the catholic church, but the difference here is the exploration of community and combined ritual to fight against evil, so there’s a different take of the view of religion, with the touchstone of the familiar.
‘Are you looking for Regan?’ The question asked from possessed cracked lips and yellow, blood-shot eyes.
Analysing the story, I realise I didn’t find the movie all that scary – because of that familiar aspect to the possessed.
There’s some jumps and twists. And I appreciated the restraint, building the relationships of the characters rather than over-extending the exorcism (there’s still projectile black spew – classic).
What started to draw a cold shiver was drawn from the montages of cuts back and forth of a young girl reading an old tale of dragons, a ‘snick snack’, as a search continues for lost girls who wander in the woods.
And those new cracks, those hints of old folk lore could have expanded into suspense but were instead filled with a harking back to the beginning of the franchise. To Regan. That didn’t really go anywhere.
Screenplay by: Bragi F. Schut, Stefan Ruzowitzky and Zak Olkewicz, based on “The Captain’s Log” from Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Produced by: Brad Fischer, Mike Medavoy, Arnold Messer
Executive Produced by: Matthew Hirsch
Starring: Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian.
‘Evil is aboard. Powerful evil.’
It’s 1897 when merchant ship, The Demeter is seen off the coast of Whitby, England.
The ship’s sails are torn, the hull blackened and like a ghost ship, there are no surviving passengers.
Based on the chapter, The Captain’s Log from the iconic literary novel, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), this is the tale of the vampire’s voyage from his homeland across the seas to England.
The setting of the film is aboard the ship, where the captain (Liam Cunningham) and his crew, including last minute addition, Clemens (Corey Hawkins), a doctor looking for passage home, find themselves trapped as the horror begins; first the animals are found slaughtered, then the crew of the ship. And there’s no way to escape.
Director, André Øvredal (Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark (2019), Trollhunter (2010), and a recommendation to watch if you haven’t already, The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)) focusses on Dracula as the monster – his visage more bat than man, with glowing yellow eyes and needlepoint teeth.
There is no sympathy for the monster, from the outset, Dracula is cast as the ‘Devil’s Serpent,’ a killing machine – and when the animals are found ripped apart, the audience is set firmly against the undead as Dracula preys on the living who have no hope and no understanding of what they’re dealing with.
Until the crew discover Anna (Aisling Franciosi), a girl they first believe is a stowaway, but after blood transfusions from Clemens to save her, she becomes the crew’s only way of understanding the evil that is sailing with them. She’s not the bad luck that has befallen the ship. She’s a survivor.
There’re clever devices used to ramp-up the tension, firstly those on board trapped as they wait for the sun to set so the film plays out like a slasher formula as Dracula feeds, picking each member off, one by one.
The crew knock on wood to communicate from the bowels of the ship, so there’s this listening out to hear that knock, to hear if someone’s trapped and about to literally be eaten.
It’s dark, raining, the sea throws the ship back and forth and there’s a monster on board: It’s the perfect set-up for a horror movie.
And I really wanted to love this film. I’m a fan of the Dracula genre, and horror-thrillers, and there’s a good cast here – Liam Cunningham as the captain (you’ll recognise as Davos Seaworth from Game of Thrones) has just the right amount of gravitas and scores well for humanity putting the audience firmly behind well, the humans. And the soundtrack adds a foreboding atmosphere, building the tension so there’re some good scares (someone sitting behind me yelped on more than one occasion, which was good fun).
There’s something to be said for watching a scary movie in the cinema where the audience is collectively given a jump.
But because it has that slasher formula, the film starts to feel predictable.