If you thought the Black Pearl was a cursed ship from the Pirates of the Caribbean films, this one was worse. Every horror buff loves a good vampire tale, especially about the OG vampire himself: Dracula. Whether it is mentioning Bram Stoker’s 1897 gothic horror literary novel Dracula, to video game adaptations in the Castlevania series, vampire stories will always be cool.
André Øvredal’s The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a supernatural horror film that has adapted a chapter from Stoker’s novel Dracula called “The Captain’s Log.” The plot essentially revolved around a merchant ship crew of the Demeter are doing a special delivery of 50 unmarked crates from Romania (Transylvania) to London, England. However, things go awry when each night, the crew is stalked and attacked by the legendary vampire Dracula. Even if you know the novel’s ending for the story of the Demeter, you may be surprised by the results.
The movie began at the end of the tale that most people would know, as the doom aboard the Demeter was inevitable. The Demeter had been beached on a dark, stormy night. Authorities investigated the wreck to find a lone person with the captain’s log of what occurred in the past four weeks aboard the aged schooner. And so, the film continued to show what happened within the four weeks leading up to the ship and its crew’s demise. The opening scene set up the last voyage of the Demeter aptly, and briskly introduced the main cast in a fun, lighthearted way. As the ship’s journey began quite happily, things began to take a turn as they find a stowaway young woman aboard named Anna.
Corey Hawkins (Kong: Skull Island, In the Heights) really showed his acting chops in the role of Clemens—a doctor who joins the Demeter’s crew last minute. What I assumed was some form of English accent was not as terrible an accent as some portrayals. Surprisingly, I thought it was natural—and I watched him a lot from 24: Legacy and The Walking Dead.
Liam Cunningham as Captain Elliot of the Demeter was a nice sight to see since his role as the swashbuckling Davos Seaworth in the Game of Thrones HBO series. Both him and Hawkins had some really good monologues whether it was the captain narrating his log as he wrote about each day, or Clemens explaining his purpose in life. As for David Dastmalchian, this was not as a dynamic character for him as his many other roles in works like The Suicide Squad or the Ant-Man films.
“The Last Voyage of the Demeter did not shock and awe every scene, but took the time to elevate the suspense intellectually as each night aboard the ship got worse.”
It would be remiss not to compare this to other stalker/predator films like the classic Predator and Alien films. The buildup to the Dracula reveal was not slow or fast—but the reveals of this iteration of Dracula’s abilities were fairly balanced. The classic no sunlight or he gets burned rule was definitely on the table.
Without the characters’ dialogue being too oversaturated with exposition, I felt it was methodical and believable when they were trying to figure out what was happening. The Last Voyage of the Demeter did not shock and awe every scene but took the time to elevate the suspense intellectually as each night aboard the ship got worse.
From the jump scares to the gore factor, The Last Voyage of the Demeter was about a five or six. With a story about Dracula, the number one bloodsucker, I would have liked to have seen an excess of blood. However, hats off to the make-up and prosthetics department for all the scars and bite marks—very realistic and gooey. Seeing the different stages of Dracula’s appearance was a unique experience. I found the Nosferatu influence to be grimacing and added a sort of throwback to the more bat-like Dracula versus the devilishly handsome portrayals.
Overall, the design of Dracula/Nosferatu was amazing. I think the rainy, dark weather helped to hide any VFX flaws—nothing stood out as terribly bad. The set design of the Demeter also looked pretty good. I liked how the cramped cargo and quarters felt a little claustrophobic, adding to the tension of being trapped with a vampire on board.
Bear McCreary’s (The Walking Dead, God of War Ragnarök) score for the film might have been one of the best parts of the film. Every point of rising action and nail-biting moment in the night was met with the appropriate crescendo of violins. And then, of course, each kill by Dracula had hype-menacing music that just made me excited about each kill. It was almost like battle march music, and I stanned it!
“What I could not get over was how messy the plot becomes upon thinking it through.”
I could not get over how chaotic the plot becomes when you think it through. I am no expert on late 1800s sailing or how ships were run, but I am confident they must have had access to fairly decent weapons. For some reason, the characters did not introduce arming themselves until Dracula had claimed about half the crew’s lives.
And when they were used, they lacked any sort of coolness when shot. Obviously, this was not John Wick, but there was a lack of power in the gunshots throughout the film. Usually, this would come in the form of muzzle flashes, smoke and hard-hitting sounds. The impact of the guns in The Last Voyage of the Demeter was as sad and limp as a pre-barbecue hot dog.
Similarly, the men in the film were almost all portrayed as idiots when it came to coming up with ways to thwart Dracula. I thought Aisling Franciosi’s Anna was a tough character who showed the boys how it was done in many of the action sequences.
The lasting impression of The Last Voyage of the Demeter was that it had some cool moments and some facepalm moments. It used a lot of classic horror movie tropes—from the Dutch angles to the typical jump scares. I will say the almost two-hour runtime did fly by for the most part, but by the third act kept me thinking about how this was going to end in a way that was meant to subvert our expectations.
