Dracula (The Last Voyage of the Demeter)

**Vlad III Drăculea**, mainly known as **Dracula**, is the main antagonist of the 2023 supernatural-horror film *The Last Voyage of the Demeter*, based on "The Captain's Log" chapter of the novel *Dracula* by Bram Stoker.

He was a prince of Wallacia, now he is a legendary vampire who rules over Transylvania, feasting with the living, getting blood slaves, and creating other vampires, until he decided to expand his hunting ground by traveling to London on the ship, *The Demeter*. There, he picks off the crew one by one until there is no one left, except for the main protagonist Doctor Clemens, who vows to hunt him down and end his reign.

He was portrayed by Javier Botet, who also portrayed The Crooked Man in *The Conjuring 2*, Mama in the film of the same name, the Leper, one of the many forms of It, in the 2017 adaption of *IT*, KeyFace in *Insidious: The Last Key*, Slender Man in the 2018 film adaptation of the same name, and Tristana Medeiros in the *REC* film series.

## Personality

Dracula is a ruthless, possessive, aggressive, brutal, cruel, and sadistic creature that kills only for power and food. As demonstrated, he likes to torment his victims before he kills them. He even goes as far as mutilating their bodies and eating them while they are still alive. He also revels in the fear of other humans as he torments a Transylvanian village for years until they gave in to him and terrify *The Demeter* crew into believing he is the Devil or the wrath of God. He also behaves in an animalistic demeanor as he growls and roars like a predator hunting his prey. Despite his animalistic and feral behavior, he is still capable of rational thought and enjoys committing heinous actions against humans, and even says that he wants to be feared.

## Biography

Much of his origin is unknown, except that Dracula resided in an abandoned castle since he dominated the people of Transylvania, whom he ruled through fear. When night fell, he would leave the castle and head to the villages where he preyed on the villagers, killing them one by one for food and spreading the story about him so that no one would challenge him. To save a village, they offered a reluctant woman named Anna as his blood slave, to which he agrees. Dracula bit her new servant from time to time, but without completely exhausting her. Wanting to expand his game reserve and having increasing difficulty feeding himself, D'racula plans to travel to London, where he believes he will enjoy an excellent feast. He forces the Romanian locals to transport him, his blood slave Anna, and the soil of Transylvania in large wooden boxes to the port of Varna. In the port of Transylvania they recognize the symbol of Dracula's dragon and fear them. Wishing to keep the creature away from their land, they give them to the crew of the ship "Demeter", wishing them good luck and praying to God to have mercy on them. The first night at sea, Dracula leaves his coffin to explore the ship and feed on all the rats that nest there, but no one notices anything. The vampire also bites his blood slave, Anna, before returning to rest. Later, one of the boxes falls and breaks in the cargo hold. Clemens investigates and finds Anna buried in the dirt inside. Seeing that she is barely alive, he gives her blood transfusions to combat an apparent infection. The night after this, already in the Aegean Sea, Clemens and Olgaren see a mysterious figure that they cannot recognize, but while Clemens is skeptical, believing that it was just his imagination, Olgaron takes it as a bad omen. That same night Dracula kills all the animals on board the ship, including the crew's dog, Huckleberry, for food. Clemens identifies this as a rage attack from the dog, to which everyone except Olgaren agrees. Fearing an outbreak of rabies, the crew throws all the animals overboard. Before returning to his coffin, Dracula, trembling and hungry, mentally calls out to Anna. The nights pass, and Dracula, deprived of the blood of his maid, very hungry and weakened, decides to eat some of the crew and finds a drunk Petrofsky on duty and attracts him to him, where he opens his throat and eats him. Afterwards he throws the corpse over the deck and returns to his coffin. Anna suddenly wakes up and warns the crew that Dracula is in "The Demeter" and that they must leave before she kills them all. Clemens tries to talk to her about what's going on and she tells him about a local monster in her village called Dracula, who was unknowingly linked to her village. That night, Dracula attacks two other crewmates, leaving only Olgaren alive but bitten. He breaks free the next night and pursues Toby, trapping him in the captain's room with Dracula. As the crew tries to save him, Dracula bites Toby. The next morning, Olgaren burst into flames as the sun rose. Hours later, realizing Toby had died, the crew attempts to bury him at sea when Captain Elliot notices him moving and checks on him, only for a vampiric Toby to grab the Captain as he bursts into flames. The remaining crew members decide to try to drown Dracula and destroy the ship while he is on board to prevent him from wreaking havoc on London. Wojchek is killed while he attempts to shoot Dracula and flood the ship. Captain Elliot straps himself to the ship's wheel and attempts to maneuver "The Demeter" away from shore only until Dracula appears behind and kills him while Elliot tells him that he is giving up on him. Later, Clemens finds the dying Elliot still tied to the helm. Clemens then calls Dracula telling him that he is not a god and that he does not fear him and Dracula appears in a monstrous vampire bat appearance and tries to kill Clemens, until his maid Anna manages to crush him with a part of the mast. Anna and Clemens jump off the ship before the ship sinks and Dracula dies. However, the vampire's attack on the captain prevented him from altering the course of the "The Demeter" and it ended up running aground on the coast. Moment when Dracula breaks free and roars in victory. The police discover the ship aground, but find no survivors, except for the captain's diary that tells the story of what happened during the voyage. The next morning still at sea Anna reveals that he is turning into a vampire as a result of the nosferate's bites, and Clemens' blood transfusions only delayed his transformation. Not wanting to become a vampire, Anna willingly lets the sunlight burn her as Clemons makes it to shore. In London, Clemens is in a restaurant drawing a picture of Anna, when she hears the knock, she sees Dracula disguised as a human. She then walks past Clemens and gives him the same cut on his neck that she gave him in "The Demeter" before leaving the restaurant. Clemens then also leaves the restaurant and notices the shadow of the vampire and begins to follow him, promising for his dead companions to hunt him down to finish him off and end his reign.

## List of Victims

1. Huckleberry
2. Animals
3. Petrofsky
4. Larsen
5. Olgaren
6. Toby
7. Joseph
8. Abrams
9. Wojchek
10. Captain Elliot
11. Anna

## Trivia

* In the original script Dracula was called Nosferatu which would have made him a version of Count Orlok (Which explains the resemblance) and was even worse than the final product and was a monster who has fed on countless lives and wiped out entire civilizations with his heinous plagues and even uses a thrall named Ponari to assist him while lying that he will save Ponari's beloved daughter from death before turning Ponari into a vampire and begins spreading his plague on the land of England.