Review: The Last Voyage of the Demeter

Directed by: André Øvredal

Written by: Bragi Schut, Jr. & Zak Olkewicz

Starring: Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, David Dastmalchian, Liam Cunningham

Rating: [2/5]

Classic tales of legendary figures contain a familiarity as we know them from beginning to end. As we know in the story of Dracula, he takes a boat ride from Romania to London. While we understand what happens before and after his time on the boat, but The Last Voyage of the Demeter takes the interesting narrative approach of answering what that boating experience could have been for the crew unknowingly transporting this immortal being. While a genuinely fun idea, the film, however, just cannot adequately bring everything together. 

Taking on a job, the crew of the Demeter receive quite the sum to transport some crates from Romania to London. As they make their voyage, some of the crew members begin to notice some strange occurrences transpiring where it becomes evident something inhuman might be on the boat with them. 

The simple idea of Dracula terrorizing shipmates on the boat contains a selling point that does not need to win me over. It has all the ingredients for a story that will grab my attention with minimal effort. As the film opens, it outlines that the ship arrives in London completely obliterated and with no survivors, meaning things do not go particularly well as one can imagine. It makes this whole situation quite ominous as a result. Therefore, we know as we jump into this story that most if not all of these characters will not make it out, and it only becomes more difficult to bear that not only are there livestock going with them but also a child. 

Everything leading up to the eventual reveal of Dracula brings the promise of a premise ready to deliver, but unfortunately, The Last Voyage of the Demeter does not quite get where it needs to in order to fulfill its potential. With such a restriction of this boat in the middle of the ocean, this feature never quite builds up the tension and genuine fear that should prove palpable. This terrible isolation as each of these characters get picked off one by one never quite has the juice to thrill even in the more unsettling moments, which comes down to the direction. Everything around the staging of these sequences where Dracula takes out characters feels so lifeless and not really something that would induce the fear we would hope to feel. Instead, it becomes this tedious journey to reach another day of night where another one of these characters will perish. 

This lack of tension certainly does not get aided by having to navigate this story with some fairly bland characters. The most we get from any sort of characterization appears with Clemens, portrayed by Corey Hawkins. He works as a doctor but faces discrimination because of the color of his skin. His arc does not really excite and the direction everything goes for him, particularly by the end, just creates but head-scratching confusion as to what the individuals behind this film thought they were making here. The less said about the other characters the better, as they essentially serve as cannon fodder for Dracula to pick them off. Liam Cunningham truly deserved better. 

At the end of the day, we came into this movie looking to spend some time with this iteration of Dracula, which does not appear as some suave human but a winged monster that occasionally spares some phrases. This iteration of the famed vampire comes across quite animalistic, which does not provide any particular depth to it other than wanting to eat these humans to feed on their blood. Nothing about this particular creation does impress. That does not necessarily signify I wanted to see a monster delivering lines of dialogue, but man there were various stretches in the film where I completely forgot about its presence, which does not bode well considering it’s terrorizing these men on a particularly small boat in the middle of the ocean. This ultimately sums up what makes The Last Voyage of the Demeter a particular misfire. It did not need much to impress me, and even then it failed. Something that should work on paper, but just does not materialize into something that either entertains or makes us look at the Dracula story any differently.