august schlock: the last voyage of the demeter & meg 2: the trench

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is an expansive adaptation of a single chapter from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but - as many (including Norwegian director Andre Ovredal) have suggested - it might as well be Alien reconceived aboard a 19th-century seafaring vessel. Set in 1897, the story revolves around the titular ship as it sets sail for London, unaware that its Romanian cargo includes a certain fabled bloodsucker who begins feasting nightly on the crew. Given the title, it’s not really a spoiler to admit that things don’t turn out so well.

Ovredal (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) has legitimate filmmaking chops. He calibrates the creaking ropes, groaning shipboards and lashing rain for maximum visual and auditory impact - frequently evoking the gothic grandeur of the Hammer Horror era. The capable cast includes Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones) as the ship’s captain and the versatile Corey Hawkins (24: Legacy) as a medical man who’s a last-moment addition to the crew (the suddenly ubiquitous David Dastmalchian - already seen this summer in The Boogeyman and Oppenheimer - plays the ship’s gloomy first mate, who only grows gloomier as the voyage wears on). The film has an appreciable nasty streak; throats are torn out and blood is spilled liberally. The fate of the Captain’s grandson Toby (Norman Woody) - his underage status normally providing some built-in measure of protection - encapsulates the movie’s fundamental and unapologetic meanness. Most horror fans will readily applaud the cut of its jib.  ​

Alas, it’s a rather limited premise, however, and the script - in spite of a supposedly two-decade journey from spec to big-screen - makes little effort to fashion a, shall we say… less-limited approach, a clever riffing on Stoker’s basic melody. There are no narrative surprises. The character work is largely perfunctory (Hawkins noting his medical career’s been stymied by racism is about the sum total of it). Dracula’s unique allure has long been his dichotomy between stately aristocrat and savage predator… and while there’s something to be said for a version that’s entirely feral, after a while he just begins to feel like another creature feature concoction - a shallow F/X monstrosity. The character’s seductive charisma and dark wit are sorely missed. The Last Voyage of the Demeter slakes a basic appetite for grisly horror, but is not unlike its namesake - solid and seaworthy, but ultimately doomed.

Let’s be honest - it should *not* be this difficult to produce a genuinely groovy prehistoric shark thriller. The original Meg - released in 2018 and directed by Jon Turteltaub - was fine, but merely functional. It never rose to the tantalizing B-movie gusto of its premise. This sequel - randomly directed, as if on auto-pilot, by offbeat Brit auteur Ben Wheatley (Kill List, High-Rise, Free Fire) - promises a more off-the-rails, Meg-fueled extravaganza, but it mostly just vaporizes any brain cells in the immediate vicinity.

Jason Statham returns as Jonas Taylor, now battling eco-criminals when he’s not co-parenting the now teenage Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai) along with her Uncle, played by Wu Jing (it feels very much like original lead Li Bingbing simply declined to reprise her role, and the script was hastily revised in the most painless manner possible). A routine submersible dive into the Mariana Trench uncovers an illegal mining operation, one that involves the farming of rare earth minerals worth billions. Mercenary Montes (Sergio Peris-Mencheta) triggers an explosion to cover their tracks, leaving Jonas and his team stranded on the ocean’s floor and punching a hole in the thermocline - the all-important layer that keeps the Trench’s prehistoric ecosystem firmly in place. This first hour is astonishingly dull, toothless and largely shark-free stuff. Our leads must figure out a way to get from the station back to the surface (and unravel a bit of industrial espionage in the process)… and until they do, it’s as if the film is left puttering in neutral.​

The third act finally cuts loose as a trio of Megalodons - along with a giant octopus and a pack of lizard-like creatures known as "Snappers" (capable of wreaking havoc on land and sea in equal measure) - descend onto a tropical resort known as “Fun Island.” In theory, this is exactly the sort of Jaws-on-HGH nonsense that the original never quite pulled off, as Jonas goes shark-jousting on a jet ski and fends off a Meg with a severed helicopter rotor. But it’s all oddly lacking in creative flair. Unlike a movie such as Piranha 3D (hardly a noteworthy work of art to begin with), there’s no devious spark; it’s a bland and bloodless affair. Statham’s acting style is such that it’s virtually impossible to tell if he’s merely bored, but his hard-boiled gruffness at least carries some value in an enterprise such as this. The Meg should, by all accounts, be a hugely entertaining franchise, but so far it’s been little more than cinematic chum.