Genre: Drama/Supernatural
Director: Cary Fukunaga
Writer: Seth Overton
Based on the novel by George R.R. Martin
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Paul Bettany, Benedict Cumberbatch, Emily Blunt, Walton Goggins, Rory Cochrane, Jill Marie Jones, Christopher Eccleston
Plot: Act I - St. Louis, May 1857
The town is covered with a thick mist. Steamboats carrying iron supplies are sailing along the river. The streets are crowded with people and carriages. Abner Marsh (Hugh Jackman) gloomily makes his way through the crowds. He asks a passer-by for direction to a hotel, but the person replies to him in German, a language he is unfamiliar with. In the 1850s, St. Louis received a large number of German and Irish emigrants. Germans who could afford the voyage came to St. Louis to escape political unrest in their country. They settled in St. Louis, close to the area in Mid-Missouri where other German settlers established homes due to the geographical similarity of Missouri and the German wine country.
He eventually finds the hotel and asks the receptionist for the room number he had written on a piece of paper. He goes upstairs to the room where he meets Joshua York (Paul Bettany), a rich, soft-spoken gentleman with pale complexion and white hair. Abner Marsh and Joshua York become unlikely business partners when Joshua promises to finance the construction of a magnificent new riverboat, the greatest steamboat on the Mississippi River. However, Marsh doesn't fully trust his new partner and his crew. York and his friends are pale, never go out during the day, and drink a strange and horrible-tasting liquor constantly. In the initial run of the steamship, the titular Fevre Dream, York holds up the schedule with mysterious several-day errands, frustrating and further raising the suspicions of Marsh. He decides to confront his mysterious partner when he finds scrapbooks in Joshua's cabin containing newspaper clippings detailing many mysterious, unexplained deaths. Joshua reveals that he and his friends are vampire hunters, using the Fevre Dream as their base of operations to investigate a trail of unusual deaths and disappearances along the river. In time, however, he reveals the whole truth: He and his friends are themselves vampires, humanoid beings specialized for and dependent upon hunting humans, characterized by Joshua as "a different race".
During their ventures, they find a slave girl named Emily (Jill Marie Jones) who is running from her master. Marsh is indifferent towards her and even suggests giving her back to her owner for a hefty reward. York disagrees as he believes slavery to be morally reprehensible, admittedly an anachronistic point of view.
Act II - New Orleans, April 1857
Sour Billy Tipton (Walton Goggins) arrives at the French Exchange to bid at an auction. He stands there silently, elbows up against the long marble bar, sipping an absinthe. He is seemingly disinterested, as they auction four casks of wine, seven crates of dry goods and a shipment of furniture. He joins them with renewed interest when they bring in the slaves. After some time, he meets Raymond Ortega (Rory Cochrane) with his newly made acquisitions. They get in their carriage and trot away.
When they finally arrive at the mansion, they arrange the slave girls in a straight line for the master to inspect them. They are met by Valerie Mersault (Emily Blunt) , the master's right hand. She sends some of the girls away, narrowing down to 3 of them. She brings them to the main room, where master Damon Julian (Benedict Cumberbatch) sips a glass of red liquor. He takes notice of one of the girls who calls herself Emily, but decides such beauty should be kept for a special occasion so he sends her to be locked away and chooses one of the other girls for the night. Ortega's first instinct is to go and lock the girls, but Julian tells him to have "the human" (Billy Tipton) do it, as he wants to organize an impromptu meeting with him and Valerie.
Billy Tipton is eager to prove himself to Julian as he was assured he would be turned into an immortal vampire in exchange for his unconditional loyalty. This is, of course, a joke from Julian's part, as vampires are simply born and cannot be turned. Nonetheless, Billy takes Emily and the other girl outside. The slave girls see an opportunity to escape as the man accompanying them seems less powerful and imposing than the vampires they had met earlier. They kick him and run away, but he manages to catch the other girl while Emily disappears into the distance.
At the meeting, Julian informs the others that he's heard rumors his old nemesis Joshua York is back. Valerie is visibly intrigued by the news, betraying her infatuation with York. He goes on, detailing that York has developed a potion, using ancient alchemy and rudimentary chemistry, which cures the "red thirst" of all vampires. He emphasizes the word cure in a way that conveys his strong disagreement. In Julian's mind, everything about humans is inferior, including their morals. They decide to start a hunt with random murders from town to town along the river, in order to lure him out and board his steamship.
His plan is successful. After several months, he boards the Fevre Dream with his own vampire followers and manages to overpower and depose Joshua, becoming the new bloodmaster of all vampires aboard the Fevre Dream, including Joshua. His first intention is to kill Joshua but gives into Valerie's insistence and lets him and Abner escape, but only after destroying the plans for his cure, as well as killing Emily in front of him, calling it "reclaiming his property".
Act III - Lawrence, Kansas - August 1863
The American Civil War is in full force. Abner Marsh is now part of Quantrill's Raiders. The town of Lawrence, Kansas - considered a center of anti-slavery sentiment, had outlawed Quantrill’s men and jailed some of their young women. For this reason, Quantrill (Christopher Eccleston) led an attack on the town, killing more than 180 civilians, supposedly in retaliation for the casualties caused when the women’s jail had collapsed. Abner Marsh, however, seems unmoved by the cause. The only reason he joined the war was to keep his mind off the steamship he had lost to Julian. It was an unsuccessful attempt, as nightmares involving the ship plagued him every night, causing him to wake up sweating. His other companions did the same, albeit for different reasons as the hardships of war took a toll on them.
He spends the next years going through life seemingly unfazed until one day he is contacted by Valerie. She has left Julian's side and now wants to find Joshua and help him resume his efforts to cure vampirism. For the first time in years, Marsh is bursting with excitement at the thought of possibly regaining his steamship. After extensive searches that lead them as far as Bavaria in Europe, they finally find Joshua who has not sat idly all this time. He perfected his cure and distributed it all across Europe. It is now 1870 and Joshua and Abner travel to New Orleans to finally depose the evil bloodmaster who has ruined both of their dreams.
Act IV - Aboard the Fevre Dream, December 1870
Aboard the decaying Fevre Dream, the two vampires eventually square off and with Abner and Valerie's aid, Joshua finally overpowers Julian. A now decrepit Billy Tipton tries to help Julian, with the same fervor and vehemence that his master will finally fulfill his promise. His attempt is as futile as it is pathetic.
In his dying breath, Julian laments Joshua. “Your errors rise from being raised among cows, who have taught you not to consume them. Evil, you talk about. Where did you learn that concept? From them, of course, from the cattle. Good and evil, those are cattle words, empty, intended only to preserve their worthless lives. They live and die in mortal dread of us, their natural superiors. We haunt even their dreams, so they seek solace in lies, and invent gods who have power over us, wanting to believe that somehow crosses and holy water can master us. There is no good or evil, only strength and weakness, masters and slaves. You are feverish with their morality, with guilt and shame. How foolish that is. These are their words, not ours. You preach of new beginnings, but what shall you begin? To be as cattle? Pathetic."
The new beginnings did indeed happen. Many years later, it is revealed that all vampires, though still effectively immortal, were eventually freed from their blood addiction by Joshua's potion and Abner's brave efforts on their behalf. They make nighttime pilgrimages to Abner's grave overlooking the Mississippi.
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