The Last Voyage Of The Demeter's Dracula Was Inspired By Nosferatu's Silent Character - Exclusive

With more than a century's worth of Dracula films to look back on for inspiration, director André Øvredal decided it was best to go back to the beginning to inform his iteration of author Bram Stoker's legendary vampire character for his horror thriller "The Last Voyage of the Demeter."

The horrifying figurehead has been well represented in film over the past century, of course, by the likes of Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, and Gary Oldman. Still, Øvredal felt the "Demeter's" version of the character best mirrored Count Orlok (Max Schreck), aka Dracula, in director F.W. Murnau's 1922 cinematic classic "Nosferatu."

"In many ways, our Dracula is a silent movie character, as Nosferatu is, because he doesn't walk around and communicate and have dialogue with characters at all," Øvredal told Looper in an exclusive interview. "He's not Gary Oldman, he's not Bela Lugosi, he's a creature that is on his own. He's a loner, he's lonely out there on the sea. He's trying to survive, and I found that to be a wonderful story to tell, that we are talking about him trying to survive and a crew trying to survive him — and it becomes this natural conflict."

"The Last Voyage of the Demeter" takes a deep dive into the fateful events of "The Captain's Log" chapter in Stoker's novel and the carnage the crew of the Demeter schooner suffers while transporting a crate containing Count Dracula (Javier Botet) from Carpathia to London. Liam Cunningham stars as Captain Eliot, while David Dastmalchian plays his first mate, Wojchek. The film also stars Corey Hawkins as the ship's doctor, Clemens, and Aisling Franciosi plays Anna, a mysterious stowaway whom Dracula has nefarious plans for.

Opting for makeup effects rather than CGI to create Dracula, André Øvredal called upon Javier Botet, whom the director cast as the Big Toe Corpse in his 2019 horror thriller "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark." Since Øvredal's "Scary Stories" collaborator Guillermo del Toro also cast Botet in "Crimson Peak" — and the actor has also worked for James Wan — the director had complete confidence in bringing him aboard the Demeter to play Dracula.

"He is the character. I had to lean a lot on him because it's such a specialized thing to be able to portray characteristics and humanity and monstrosity at the same time through sometimes sheer body language, through a minimal mimicking of facial expressions that is also hidden by latex and whatever," Øvredal explained. "It's a grueling experience for him on set to do all this in the middle of rain scenes, with the boat rocking and all nine yards. He's a trooper, both as an actor and as a team player, working through these endless nights of filming physically hard scenes for him to do."

While Dracula in "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" bears some similarities to Orlok in "Nosferatu," André Øvredal said he was thrilled for the opportunity to give his own unique take on the character. What makes Øvredal's film special, of course, is that he was able to expand upon Stoker's text about the character in "The Captain's Log," giving "Dracula" fans a unique look at the vampire's tale from a much different vantage point.

"His descriptions [in the book] are different than what we are portraying, but we wanted to show this 400-year-old mass murderer and what that looks like," Øvredal said. "I found that to be a fascinating thing to portray, because I've seen every other iteration of Dracula and so many great ones, but this was an opportunity to do something different."

Adapted for the screen by Bragi Schut Jr. and Zak Olkewicz, "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" is playing in theaters.