On the open sea, nobody can hear you scream, well… nobody except for your crewmates. The Last Voyage of the Demeter is the latest horror film directed by André Øvredal (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark). It is based on a segment of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, in which the titular vampire travels by ship to England, picking off members of the crew one by one. The film mainly takes place on the Demeter, the ship in question. The Last Voyage of the Demeter is everything you would expect from a Dracula movie that takes place on a ship, and that’s why it delivers.
The film is led by Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton, The Tragedy of Macbeth, and The Walking Dead), who plays a doctor named Clemens who joins the Demeter right before it leaves port. The film also stars David Dastmalchian, Aisling Franciosi, and Woody Norman. Fans of Game of Thrones might also recognize the Captain of the Demeter, played by Liam Cunningham, who played Ser Davos Seaworth in the hit show. He also acts as the film’s narrator since the movie is framed by his captain’s log that the police find at the start of the film. None of the performances are subpar, so it’s hard to pick a standout. They do a good job of making you believe that everybody on the ship is terrified once their crewmates start becoming slabs of meat for the Count to eat.
The film is set in the late 19th century, so once they set out to sea, there’s no way to communicate with anyone outside of the ship. As Dracula hunts down the crew members, the Demeter becomes claustrophobic, adding to the terrifying ambiance. If Jaws didn’t put you off sea travel, The Last Voyage of the Demeter just might.
A Return to Form
What the movie does the best is that it gets back to the roots of the Prince of Darkness. Most modern pieces depict vampires and Dracula through more of an action lens, but thankfully, The Last Voyage of the Demeter is clearly a pure horror film. Dracula is Nosferatu-like, more of a creature than a dashing middle-aged man with an accent. Most of the kills occur in the shadows, with the crew finding the mangled body of a crewmate after Dracula has already had his feed. When we do see the bodies, they are reduced to bloody pieces of meat. There manages to be a solid line of character development throughout the two-hour movie, so it’s devastating when crewmembers die.
The film’s score, which was produced by Bear McCreary (God of War, Black Sails, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power), fits it perfectly, adding to the eerie atmosphere. Unless you’ve avoided all of the promotional material for the movie, you know it’s about Dracula. Watching the crew realize what’s happening to them could have been grating, but it’s not. Instead, you know exactly what’s coming for them. The horror (and fun) comes from how Dracula picks them off.
Most of the film’s shortcomings fall on the story. By the time we get to the third act, the characters are on board with what is happening to them. An obvious way out of their predicament is revealed, but nobody connects the dots, finding another way to deal with Dracula. Some of the characters act in some strange ways toward the end too, but we can’t rule out that they were being driven insane by Dracula or that the isolation at sea might’ve gotten to them.
The Final Voyage
While the story is where The Last Voyage of the Demeter stumbles, it isn’t all doom and gloom. There are certain plot points I genuinely didn’t see coming and ones that I put together while I was watching the film that heightened the experience. Clemens had a monologue in the third act that put a smile on my face, and seeing Dracula finally step out of the shadows for his kills was enthralling. Actually, the only reason the third act had any punch at all was because Dracula was in the shadows for the majority of the movie.
With that being said, the film doesn’t really resolve itself. The Last Voyage of the Demeter ends on somewhat of a cliffhanger, and I can’t see a sequel getting made – at least not one that’s consistent with the tone of this film. That’s a shame because up until the end, it could have been a great standalone movie, but now the audience might be expecting a second entry. That doesn’t make this movie worse by much, as you can still take it as a standalone film, but it would have been nice to know the general trajectory of a character or two at the end.
If you wanted an old-school Dracula – one that isn’t the subject of a comedy or a mindless bullet sponge – The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a movie for you. In a year that has already seen the release of some great horror films, this one definitely shouldn’t be missed.
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