The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)

The Last Voyage of the Demeter (aka Last Voyage of the Demeter / Dracula: Voyage of the Demeter) review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

When Dracula dines on the crew of the Demeter during his sea-bound voyage, it’s a brief chapter in the book and even briefer in big-screen adaptations. That’s not a bad idea for a movie, considering how easy it’d be to stage Dracula less as a dapper deceiver but as a monster of the shadows. But there’s a limit to how far this Dracula-style version of Alien can go when the concept is the best part. Sadly, Demeter doesn’t evoke much cleverness in its routine rampage of Dracula on a boat.

All the ingredients are present, at least. We have a unique doctor, Clemens (Corey Hawkins), who struggles to find what is most important in life and deal with the discrimination experienced as a black man in Europe. We have a conflicted captain, Elliot (Liam Cunningham), showing concern for his grandson being in harm’s way at sea and uncertain if he wants to give up this life. Wojchek (David Dastmalchian) is a first mate who aims to be Captain and may have to take on duties faster than he thought.

The Demeter slowly succumbs to the presence of Dracula. He lurks within the dark corners of the ship, slipping out of his coffin disguised as a crate. I liked how Dracula was kept constantly concealed in the shadows, progressively revealing more of his dark-winged form. He starts with the animals and builds up a mystery of who is slaughtering the livestock on the ship. Suspicions and paranoia abound, especially when the crew unearths Dracula’s dinner stowaway, Anna (Aisling Franciosi), who frantically tells them to abandon the ship.

A premise like this is only as strong as the characters assembled around the terror of Dracula. Like any slasher film, you want to get to know and, like the many victims assembled so that it packs a punch when they end up as lunch. Unfortunately, even with two hours for this small part of the Dracula novel, the film starts and stops with its many characters. Clemens, for example, only brings up the issues of racism a few times, and it only comes to blows with the panicking crew in brief bouts of suspicion, stopping conflict before it starts. Not to mention Clemens's desire to figure out an unjust world is left on a meandering platitude, where he and Elliot have such simplistic philosophical conversations that resolve with “maybe mankind wasn’t meant to learn everything.”

This is a film that I want so desperately to love because it has so much to love. The performances are stellar, in which the cast does their best with the script they're given. The atmosphere is there as the ship feels spooky and unsafe, from its straining lower decks to the stormy top of the sails. I even dug how Dracula stalks and kills his prey in various demises. So why am I not feeling it with this film?

I never felt I knew enough about the characters as the film speeds through the development, making every bit of dialogue antsy about getting to the subsequent Dracula encounter. It doesn’t help that Anna is given so little development past talking about how Dracula tortured her that her gun-toting nature in the third act feels like mercy for the actress, giving her something more to do than prattle on about the monster aboard.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is not a terrible horror film. For those seeking little more than Dracula slaughtering the crew of a sea ship, you’ll undoubtedly get that surface-level allure out of this picture. The sad truth, however, is that not much else can be found aboard this rickety vessel of rushed characters and standard theatrics.