The Couch Critic
The Couch Critic is your laid-back guide to movies and TV shows that deserve your attention—or maybe don’t. Nathan dives deep into storytelling, character development, and cinematic style with a sharp eye and a wry sense of humor. Whether it’s a blockbuster hit, a hidden gem, or a cult classic, Nathan’s relatable approach ensures every episode feels like a cozy chat with a friend who just happens to love film. Perfect for casual watchers and cinephiles alike, The Couch Critic brings thoughtful critique without the fluff. Grab your favorite snack, settle in, and let Nathan guide you through the world of screen entertainment.
The Couch Critic
Haunted Waters: A Close Look at The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Ever wondered how a vampire can bring out the waterworks? Join me, your host Natey, as I navigate the haunted waters of "The Last Voyage of the Demeter," a horror-drama based on a slice of the classic Dracula novel. Relive the chilling tale of a doomed ship's journey from Carpathia to England, carrying the most dangerous passenger imaginable. This isn't your typical horror flick; the performances are captivating, the narrative engaging, and the visuals, albeit excessively dark at times, are utterly stunning.
Despite knowing their inevitable fate, you'll find yourself emotionally invested in the ship's crew, thanks to the powerful acting and well-crafted characters. However, the film isn't perfect. How did its repetitive structure, slow pacing, and sometimes overly dark lighting impact my viewing experience? Tune in to find out how "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" managed to score a solid five out of six stars. Stay through till the end as I also preview the upcoming review of Blue Beetle, another film I'm excited to sink my cinematic teeth into!
One's a movie buff, one watches movies, just enough. Together, fun will be had by all. This is Nadie and Katie at the Movies. Hello everyone, and welcome to another brand new episode of Nadie and Katie at the Movies. I'm your host, nathan, aka Nadie, of course, and again it is just me and this episode I'll be reviewing the last voyage of the Demeter. But before I get into my review, I must go over the synopsis. A crew sailing from Carpathia to England find that they are carrying very dangerous cargo. The last voyage of the Demeter stars Corey Hawkins, asling Franciosi and Liam Cunningham, along with other performers in this movie.
Speaker 1:Now, if you don't know what this movie is about, it is actually based on a small section of the horror novel Dracula. So everyone knows Dracula. He is a vampire who sometimes disguises himself as a man and at night he goes out and feeds on the blood of both animals and humans. And during this time he is taken aboard a ship that is going towards England and he, one by one, terrorizes the people on this ship. And when I first saw this trailer, the only reason I was going to go see this movie is because it was on our list of movies that we were planning on going to see. And of course, like I've said in the last episode, I'm starting to be a lot better at doing research. When I watch movies I try to look up things just so I understand the context going into the movie that I see. And with this one I thought it was very important to understand the context and so I looked up the story of Dracula. I started listening to the audio book of Dracula. I tried to do my due diligence to find out as much as I can about this story. Now, you would think that with the movie based on a section of a novel, you would kind of already know before going in what the ending of this movie was going to be, and you would kind of be right. What this movie does is it kind of opens with the ending but it doesn't tell you everything. And then it goes back like four weeks later and it shows the events leading up to what you saw at the beginning of the movie.
Speaker 1:But I'm going to go right into my likes and dislikes. Number one like is the acting. Usually with a horror film, the acting is kind of lacking a little bit. But I think, because this movie is based on classic literature, they wanted to get the performances and the characters as close to what you think they would be like in the book. I mean, every single person in this movie did a really good job with the characters that they were portraying. There were some characters that came off borderline annoying at times, but other than that I thought the acting and the performances were very, very good, and that kind of leads me into one of my other likes.
Speaker 1:There were legitimate moments that I got emotional in this movie. Again, if you know the book of Dracula even if you don't you probably already have an idea of what's going to happen to the majority of these people in this film, and so when those things happened to those people, there were moments where I got kind of emotional. There was one particular moment I don't want to get too into it, but there's one particular moment that I almost cried Because I was that invested in the characters, and so the fact that I was able to get to that place of emotion really shows how well done the performances were, and that's very shocking for a horror movie about a giant vampire. But this movie got me at moments, and I can't say enough about how impressed I was with that. That also goes to another like that I have. And then I was truly invested in the story Again, even though I already kind of had an idea of what was going to happen at the end because it kind of shows you at the beginning of the movie I was still invested.
Speaker 1:I wanted to know how it got to that point. And again, that goes back to just the performances of the people in this film. They were compelling, they were engaging. I mean it also goes hand in hand with just the direction of this movie. It looked beautiful. I mean there were moments where it was literally really dark. But I think it obviously makes sense with the fact that Dracula becomes this vampire form at night and so they adds to the creepiness of how dark it is. But there were some moments that I felt like they could have turned up the lights just a little bit when they were filming. But it didn't faze me that much. It didn't faze me to the extent where I was like, ok, I don't, I'm out, I don't like this movie. It didn't take me out of the film. I was still invested. If anything, it made me lean in more to try to see what was going on. So maybe that was the purpose behind all the darkness in the movie and it kind of reflected kind of the theme of this movie, which I really loved. It kind of had a religious tone to it.
Speaker 1:This Clemens character is a doctor, so he relies strictly on science, he relies strictly on nature, and so the almost the whole film he's trying to find a reason why Dracula is the way he is. He's trying to find a scientific reason behind this pure evil. And he comes to the conclusion that sometimes life doesn't make sense, sometimes the world doesn't make sense and there's evil in this world and sometimes it just can't be explained and we have to do the best we can to fight against this evil. And I just I loved how that had that undertone throughout the whole film. Now, to my dislikes, I read some reviews before I recorded this and I agree with some of those, and it's the fact that this movie does end up becoming kind of repetitive. Again, you know what's going to happen to these people on this ship, and for reasons, they literally show one by one by one, by one by one, what happens to almost every single person on this ship, and so it does get to a point where it's kind of repetitive, but again, not to the extent where I was like, ok, can this movie just be over. Even after, like the third or fourth time, something similar happens to another person on this ship, I was still finding myself being invested, still finding myself caring about these characters, even though I know they're on a doomed ship, they're in a doomed voyage.
Speaker 1:And another dislike is because I think it's based on classic literature. It's not an action film. There are jump scares, there are creepy moments, but it's not like an over the top action film. It's not a comedy, it's very much a drama. So there are moments where it could go a little bit slow at times. But I'm going to go say again, it wasn't to the extent where I was like this movie is boring, I want to leave. I was still invested in the story and the fact that I still wanted to watch and see what happened really tells a lot about the performers in this movie. This movie, I think, does hint at a continuation.
Speaker 1:I would like to see how this director would direct a full-length Dracula film because, again, this movie is only based on, it's not even based on a chapter, it's based on a section of a chapter and he made a full-length movie out of it. I think that's kind of why it comes off as repetitive, because there's only so much you can do with a small section of a chapter of a classic novel, and I think what he did with it was a really good job. I think it was very well done. Like I said, I would look forward to seeing what this director could do with more Dracula, and I wouldn't even mind if they made this the beginning of the dark universe that they were talking about doing when Tom Cruise did the Mummy and all this other random crap. I think this would be a good start to that kind of multiverse of classic monsters.
Speaker 1:So that's my review of the Last Voyage of the Demeter and I'm going to go right to my rating. I would actually give this five stars out of six. The reason I don't give it a 5.5 or a six is because, even though I said, it wasn't that big of a deal, some of the lighting at times was a little too dark and it did come off as repetitive and, like I said before, it was a bit slow at times. But I still really enjoyed it, which is why I give it a 5, which is pretty close to perfect. So, like I said, that is the Last Voyage of the Demeter.
Speaker 1:We're almost at the end of this month. We have one movie left in August and that movie is Blue Beetle. I'm actually looking forward to this. I trust James Gunn with the DCU. I'm not one of those people who's like fire him now. I'm willing to give them a chance. This is supposed to be the first character in the DCU not the first DCU movie, which is kind of confusing but I'm looking forward to it anyway, and you can listen to that episode on August 29th that's a Tuesday. Look for the quick reaction review video of that. Thanks for listening, everybody, and I would never, ever want to suck your blood. I love you guys. Thanks for listening to Nati and Katie at the Movies. Feel free to leave us a review so people can find the show. Follow us on all our social media platforms and if there's a movie that you want us to watch, feel free to contact us at natiandkatyatgmailcom. Thanks for listening and have a great day.
