The Last Voyage of the Demeter (Dir. André Øvredal) -  available on UK home release from 3rd February 2025

The director of monster flicks Trollhunter (2010) and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) Øvredal turns his horror camera towards the Dracula mythos, with an adaptation of "The Captain's Log", a chapter from Bram Stoker’s novel. The story sees a ship travel from Transylvania to the UK with the crew unwittingly carrying creature cargo on their ocean trip. An interesting route to take, the movie begins in a Bulgarian port (actually a beautifully captured Malta) and off the bat, the visuals look far better than its $45million budget would suggest. And here we follow a man named Clemens, who is a Cambridge-educated doctor, join the ill-fated crew as a series of suspicious wooden boxes (hmmm) are loaded on board. Sadly once the trip begins the film’s main flaw starts to appear. Despite its Alien-but-on-a-boat premise, it’s simply not scary or tense at all. A strange woman, some dead animals and eventually the Count (who appears as a frightful monster) failed to get my blood pumping despite its multiple attempts at inducing panic. Taking a few liberties with the book, the film throws in some appropriate gore, yet all I could think of was how the TV series The Terror had superior boat frights from the 1800 era. Not a complete failure, Corey Hawkins as Clemens is a good lead and the darkly delicious David Dastmalchian is always a welcome addition - yet at two hours it’s certainly a long slog and becomes shipwrecked in more ways than one.

★★½

2.5 / 5

Michael Sales

Werewolves (2024) Dir. Steven C. Miller -  available on UK home release from 10th February 2025

With a plethora of direct-to-video action thrillers under his belt, it’s no surprise that this latest movie from Steven C. Miller delivers similar fare - and similar quality - as we see a story of humans turning into werewolves during a supermoon event. With a hint of 2009’s Daybreakers (which mixed science and supernatural elements but for vampires) and also The Purge (Ethan Hawke again), Werewolves attempts to deliver something new to a well-worn formula. But does it? I guess the idea is solid - a society aware of werewolves attempt to control the situation - but the execution leaves a lot to be desired despite its best efforts. Yet, this may seem faint praise but I’ve seen a lot more expensive action horrors do a lot worse with a lot more and the gory makeup and practical effects are a nice change from shoddy CGI. That said, a bit less light and a bit more smoke could have helped cover up some of the quite obvious limitations in the makeup and animatronic face. And a particular scene in a lab had nasty The Predator (2018) vibes - sadly one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. Frank Grillo delivers the appropriate b-movie action star gruffness but there’s not much here to get your teeth into. Maybe the right audience will find some cult, late-night, watch-with-drunk-mates fun to it, but unless you’re a real fan of schlocky low budget nonsense, this bites off more than it can chew and doesn’t deliver anything of note in a forgettable fright flick.

★★

2 / 5

Michael Sales