What took a couple of minutes of screen time in “Dracula” movies by F.W. Murnau, Tod Browning,Werner HerzogandFrancis Ford Coppolais now a two-hour feature film.

“The Last Voyage of the Demeter,” which has the look and feel of an old-fashioned, salty horror tale of the sea, is based on a chapter of Bram Stoker’s original 1897 “Dracula,” in which the vampire count travels from Romania to London by ship, his coffin and other items packed in crates.

Just like the rest of us, Dracula needs to eat to survive, so he prowls the decks at night in search of human blood. By the time the ship crashes ashore in England, it is a ghost ship. That’s not a spoiler — that’s how the book chapter, and the movie, opens. The story is a flashback, based on the captain’s log.

Talented Norwegian director André Øvredal (“Trollhunter,”“Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark”), a game cast filled with familiar faces and an eye-popping production design by Edward Thomas keep “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” afloat for much of its two-hour running time, but the movie is eventually scuttled by the screenplay, credited to Bragi F. Schut and Zak Olkewicz.

The movie opens with a beautifully imagined port in Romania, as a Dr. Clemens (Corey Hawkins, “The Walking Dead,”“In the Heights”and later this year in “The Color Purple”), desperate for passage back to England, is added to the crew by the Demeter’s captain (Liam Cunningham, “Game of Thrones”).

Once at sea, the crew bonds at the mess table talking about the bonuses they will get should they deliver their cargo on time, a la the original “Alien.” Intriguing characters include the first mate (David Dastmalchian of“Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,”“The Suicide Squad”and“Dune”) and the captain’s grandson (Woody Norman, the kid in“C’mon, C’mon”).

The first sign of trouble is when all the livestock in the cargo hold is killed, all by mysterious bites on the neck. A body is discovered in the crates — but wait, she (Aisling Franciosi of“The Nightingale”)还活着!不久,德古拉(好的中哈维尔·Botet), who looks like the “Nosferatu” German version of the character envisioned by Murnau in his 1922 silent film, is on the prowl for humans.

This is where “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” starts to veer off course. What begins as a stylish retro-horror film — it’s so great to see the Universal Studios logo in front of a Dracula film, as it was in the Bela Lugosi Hollywood original 92 years ago — falters into the style of one of those lousy teen horror films, where the kids do the exact opposite of what would be logical in such situations.

Just one example: When the attacks start, and the crew figures out it isn’t one of their own, they search for the creature —at night.Like, every scene in this movie is at night. Since the Demeter is traveling in July and August 1897, there would be about 15 hours of sunlight each day. Open up Drac’s coffin at high noon, and you win. Searching for the creature at night, and by yourself as opposed to in teams, is not a recipe for success.

As mentioned, “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” is a feature-length expansion of a small sequence in the original “Dracula” story. This is a thing now in movies, popularized by“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,”which makes a feature film out of one scene in the original “Star Wars” movie.

This trend assures that we will never run out of movies. One can imagine feature-length expansions of many of our favorite movie scenes. Think “Rick and Ilsa in Paris: A Casablanca Story,” or “I’ll Have What She’s Having,” an expansion of the signature scene in “When Harry Met Sally.”

But for now, we have “The Last Voyage of the Demeter,” which actually was a pretty good idea that just didn’t have enough wind in its sails.

Reach G. Allen Johnson:ajohnson@sfchronicle.com