There is a new movie out entitled The Last Voyage of the Demeter. Apparently, critics are generally reviewing it well, and viewers are also giving it high ratings, but it is flopping at the box office. Perhaps because everyone knows there is no happy ending for this one.
I will definitely see it, maybe not in theaters, but at some point. There have been very few vampire related movies that I have ever seen that are worth the time, and almost all silver screen renditions of the classic, Dracula, are lousy. This one might be worth it, we shall see.
Now, I realize that most people in our contemporary, devolved, society, don’t read. Watching thirty second videos on TikTok, of morons doing moron stuff, is the new reading. God help us. The one thousand-plus page unabridged Dracula novel probably does not get read by many of the TikTokers. So, for those of you who don’t realize, this movie is based on a single chapter of the masterwork novel, Dracula, by author Bram Stoker. That novel is not only the quintessential vampire story, which solidified the contemporary portrayal of that fictional class of creature, but it really invented the entire modern horror genre, with its gothic settings and atmosphere. I read it as a teenager; it is, absolutely, a masterpiece.
The Demeter is the ship that transports Count Dracula, hidden in one of his boxes of native soil deep within the hull, from Transylvania to England. This tale is told through the captain’s log of the ship, and it comprises only a single, short, chapter in the mammoth novel. It is, however, absolutely terrifying. The movie appears to be an action-packed gore fest. The chapter in the book, however, is truly scary due to what goes, for the most part, unseen, the entire voyage, as crew members disappear every night, with the occasional report of an unrecognized, dark figure, rarely glimpsed.
The captain’s log is brief, gripping, and terrifying. The end result of the Demeter’s voyage is the death of everyone aboard, and the ship washes up on English shores with the dead captain, the last holdout, tethered to the wheel. Upon landing, no other living thing is found aboard, but a large, black, dog jumps off the boat and runs into the city. You might guess who/what it is.
So, anyway, the movie may prove an interesting take on the Captain’s Log chapter.
What is socially interesting about Dracula, however, is the type of men who emerge to be the protagonists in the story. They are exceptional, manly, educated, sophisticated, of high society, yet can get it done and don’t shy away from a fight. And, yes, they go into one hell of a fight. Now, these are the sort of men that the modern milk sops who talk about “toxic masculinity” hate. Men who rely on themselves to vanquish monsters rather than call 911 and turn over their duty as able-bodied men to the state. Of course, there was no 911 in England in the 1890s. there were, however, plenty of guns.
The late 19th Century was well before the English became sissies and allowed themselves to be disarmed. If there is some English sissy reading this article, about to comment regarding their lack of “gun crime,” that’s cute, enjoy getting stabbed on the streets of London, a place with far more violent crime than the vast majority of the United States. London’s crime is only rivaled by our big, democrat controlled, cites, that have strict gun control. Interesting.
Before I proceed, while a majority of English are self-appointed peasants, in league with our lefties here in the United States, there are still many amazing Englishmen. Some of the foremost combatives practitioners are from the UK, of course, and there are still many men and women there that believe in freedom. Not surprisingly, it tends to be an urban-rural divide, with Londoners preferring to be stabbed in the streets with no means, and, most importantly to them, no expectation, to fight back. The good folks there are, unfortunately, simply more outnumbered by big government-loving peasants than are we here.
Anyway, back to our story, the protagonists in Dracula are the forebears of the many still-amazing Englishmen in the world, and these guys get it done. To make things even more exciting, a Texan named Quincy is also part of this league of gentlemen who piece it together and hunt down the vampire. I mean, duh, any vampire hunt needs a Texan with a lever action rifle, even Bram Stoker knew that in the 1890s. and, speaking of lever rifles, that’s what the Texan and his three British friends use to shoot it out with, and hack their way through, the paid transport guards of The Count at the end of the book, to finally rip the lid off of Dracula’s coffin and kill him, just as the sun slips below the horizon, in the Transylvanian mountains.
The final chapter of Dracula is my favorite, along with the Captain’s Log chapter. Both are exceptionally well written. The final chapter portrays a gunfight and a race against time that leaves your heart pounding just reading it. Fun fact, while the wooden stake has been portrayed many times in movies, Jonathan Harker and Quincy actually kill the vampire with knives in the book, burying a Bowie knife in his heart and slashing his throat right as the sun goes down, as they pry the lid off the coffin, landing the killing slashes just as the greatest villain in fictional history opens his eyes. A second too late, and they would have had no chance to stop the monster, now back in his native land.
So, my friends, the men of Bram Stoker’s novel, who chase down and slay fiction’s greatest monster, after stacking a lot of bodies to get to him, are the sort of men who were, likely, predominant one-hundred and twenty years ago on that island. Now, they live life in that city, reminding one another of the parts in town to avoid, less they get shanked on The Tube (The Tube is the subway in London). Pathetic, right? Well, that’s what happens when you foster a society of dependence, and keep voting for leftists. Be warned. I bet the majority of Londoners, who walk nervously from place to place, hoping to not get stabbed in the neck, also think masculinity is toxic, and, oh my, what a bunch of hicks those American gun clingers are! It’s so much more sophisticated to be helpless and weak! Remember, this is the society that does not teach the feeble “Run, Hide, Fight,” dogma for active killers, but, rather, the even more pathetic “Run, Hide, Tell.” This is true, look it up.
You may have thought that Dracula was just a scary story about a vampire. Hardly. It is, rather, a good insight into what western society has lost; it’s resolve.
The gun is the tool of man’s resolve to not be a victim, or a peasant. It turns out that the gun was also needed for getting rid of our favorite fanged fellow. Some lever guns, combined with men who had the balls to do what must be done, was too much for even the greatest of all vampires to handle. Bram Stoker got it right. If Dracula was written today, by some erudite literature major, instead of bringing in the indomitable Van Helsing to lead the fight against the monster, I am sure that a social worker would have been invited in to maybe talk to The Count and sort it all out.
Let’s keep our guns and our resolve, and maybe some dignity as well, in this country, shall we?
Reflex Handgun 
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