The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023) - A Review

It’s a long voyage for the crew of the Demeter across the ocean from Bulgaria to England. Carrying a bunch of unmarked crates, they eventually discover that one contains the vampire monster Dracula. Now the the crew are being slaughtered one by one by this evil creature as the captain and the rest of the crew try to figure out a way to survive this nightmarish carnage.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a fantasy horror film based on a short chapter in the classic Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. We’ve seen portions of this ocean voyage be brought to life on screen before, notably in Nosferatu, but here it becomes a full blown story unto itself. In a way it’s sort of a Rogue One for the Dracula legend. It’s a small side story that gets expanded, more detailed and rests nicely within the larger mythic tale.

Vampire fans will appreciate that, and in fact I thought it was one of the most interesting elements about the film. Expanding this short anecdote into its own horror film, Dracula loose on a an old ship as the crew gets fights to survive. Sort of a 19th century version of Alien on the high seas. Sounds intriguing!

The premise and the idea ends up being better than the actual execution. There are some parts are very well done. It’s shot well, the claustrophobic setting is used effectively, there’s some nice creepy suspenseful scenes and it’s fun seeing this crew try to figure out how to fight this creature with their limited knowledge and weapons they have available.

This Drac is more Nosferatu than Bela Lugosi. He’s actually more like Man-Bat than those two.

For the most part it’s fine – once we get to Drac making his appearance. It’s got the expected slow build scenes of an isolated character wondering what is happening, getting the feeling something is very wrong and boom Dracula pops out and does blood sucking business on him.

It is fun the crew trying to figure out what this creature is and seeing them experience from cool Dracula lore. The sun burning a bitten victim is a highlight moment.

But, it takes quite awhile to get there. It’s a very long set up and the characters aren’t really that interesting to watch until their survival ordeal begins. I don’t mind a slow build up in a film, but there’s got to be something engaging and compelling to watch as we move along. The Demeter crew isn’t that.

The performances are all good enough. I particularly liked the Captain played by Liam Cunningham, but the dynamics between the men and the character personalities banging against each other, the conversations they have just wasn’t all that interesting. Even when a mysterious female stowaway is found it doesn’t shake up the crew and add much drama to the trip.

One thing is that it’s very dark film. Of course for a a film that is mainly set at night with only lanterns and torches for lighting, you’d expect that and does create the necessary spooky atmosphere, but it does a bit frustrating at points. The version I saw it got difficult to see what was going on at points.

So basically, I’m just waiting for Dracula to get out of his coffin to add some spice to things, and like I said, it does take a good amount of time.

I’ve read some point to the criticism that the fact we know how this story ends is too big an obstacle to overcome. I don’t buy that. We watch bio pics and docudramas where we know the whole story from the outset. It’s not so much the ending, but the journey getting to the end is the entertaining part of watching it.

Unfortunately, The Last Voyage of the Demeter, despite having all the elements in place to have been a really fun and unique vampire story, it just becomes too dragged out with some very bland characters it revolves around.

For the length it clocks in at (a full two hours), we spend an awful amount of time with them. It needed the Demeter’s crew to be more absorbing characters and engage in gripping interactions if the first half of the film was going to focus on them. You won’t remember any of them after the film ends. The movie is carried by its star blood sucker.

It ends up being an interesting, but underwhelming fill-in movie on the Dracula legend. The idea had much more potential. I watched it, but won’t be revisiting it.