THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER Almost Featured Van Helsing and a Werewolf-Like Dracula

Director Andre Øvredal’s The Last Voyage of Demeter was an extremely fun Hammer-style horror movie. Unfortunately, It didn’t do very well at the box office. The film’s story focuses on one chapter from Bram Stoker’s classic horror novel, it’s a unique story that follows the voyage of Dracula as he terrorizes on the high seas.

The movie is “based on a single chapter, The Captain’s Log, from Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 novel Dracula. The chapter tells the story of the Russian schooner, Demeter, which was chartered to carry private cargo – twenty four unmarked wooden crates – from Carpathia to London. The film will detail the strange events that befell the doomed crew as they attempt to survive the ocean voyage, stalked each night by a terrifying presence onboard the ship. When it finally arrived near Whitby Harbour, it was a derelict. There was no trace of the crew.”

We’re now learning that the film almost featured Van Helsing and a werewolf-like version of Dracula. Producer Brad Fischer shared the following information with Syfy Wire, saying the werewolf version was changed after it confused audiences:

"People were very confused about that as an additional form that Dracula took. So we had to make a decision to listen to the audience and make sure that that confusion didn't get the better of everyone."

Makeup designer Göran Lundström offered some information on the look of this werewolf version of the character that was scrapped, saying:

"[Director] Andre [Øvredal] didn't want a hairy werewolf, he wanted a werewolf who's lost his hair because he's not well. This would've been the second stage ... [this] really weak-looking, gaunt kind of werewolf thing and very asymmetrical and deformed."

That would’ve actually been interesting to see! In the final scenes of the film, audiences were treated with a tease of Dracula's future, with Fischer noting that one version of a scene in a bar would have included an appearance by Van Helsing. He said:

"We went through a lot of different approaches to the story, but nothing that was wildly different than the movie that we ended up with. We actually had one ending for quite a while. The scene in the tavern was Clemens [Corey Hawkins] being approached by a strange, shadowy dude, who starts talking to him, seems to have some knowledge of the experiences that he went through, and introduces himself as Van Helsing. Then we kind of left it there."

While these fun little things weren’t ultimately used, The Voyage of the Demeter ended up being a great horror movie. If you haven’t watched it, you should!