Like a storm-tossed ship navigating high waves, Dracula-associated horror thriller The Last Voyage of the Demeter has had a rough ride through development. Directors have come and gone, and it’s still looking for a star, but David Slade is now the man at the helm.

Given that the script, originally written by Bragi Schut, follows the ill-fated voyage of the ship that brought Dracula from to England in Bram Stoker’s book, Slade seems like a solid choice after making brutal vampire tale 30 Days of Night. And even though his last effort saw him wrangling vamps of a slightly more emo/sparkling nature in Twilight: Eclipse, we’d like to see what his keen visual eye would do for a film with a less mopey script. The story is essentially Alien at sea, with the crew slaughtered one by one by a mysterious passenger. Well, mysterious if you’ve never read the book, that is…

Noomi Rapace and Ben Kinglsey are currently loosely attached to two of the main roles, and the film has seen directors such as Robert Schwentke and, more recently, Marcus Nispel sign on and then leave. Slade still has a tough voyage ahead of him: the movie is still trying to anchor all its funding and the shifting schedule could cause problems for keeping the cast – especially the white-hot Rapace – in place.