Review Tuesday: The Last Voyage of the Demeter [2023]

 

 

The Last Voyage of the Demeter

[2023]

A cargo ship traveling from Romania to England has a terrible stowaway. 

The story of Dracula by Bram Stoker has been told and retold and re-imagined by film studios ever since NOSFERATU in 1922. While the story has been retold so many times, there has been ONE aspect of it that's been largely ignored: Dracula's voyage from Transylvania to England. There has been a good reason for it. Stoker wrote the novel as a compilation of news articles and personal journals. Per the book, when the lifeless hulk of the Demeter miraculously navigated into the bay, the only account of what had befallen the ship and her crew was from the Captain's log. When I heard that someone decided to expand on this previously disregarded chapter in horror, I became very excited!

 

This film started off with Captain Elliot (Liam Cunningham) assembling a crew for a regular cargo run to England. The ship got loaded up and bad things immediately occur. Basically this is the story of what Dracula did during the journey. As you can imagine, this is a horror movie, so while you know what's going on, you don't get to see Dracula (Javier Botet heavily made up to resemble Kurt Barlow from 'Salem's Lot)  until well into the movie. 

 

For the most part,I was okay with this film. There are some problems or rather major departures from the source material. For instance, there is Anna (Aisling Franciosi) who was brought onboard with Dracula to feed on until the ship set out to sea. That wasn't the problem. It wasn't in the book, but it might have been a clever idea for Dracula to keep something to eat. Okay. But Anna tells a tale that Dracula had been victimizing her village for centuries and they were helpless to resist. From the source material, we knew nothing of any sort of story like this. Dracula did show up in the book with a baby that he had clearly stolen from somewhere, but even so, would he be able to order a village to seal a local maiden in a crate with him so he could travel overseas? Just seemed like weak writing at that point. Bah, but that's okay. They are going to try to stick to the story, aren't they? Umm, no. I got a bit excited nearing the end when the Captain ended up tied to the wheel like in the book, but nope. They cut him loose. And there were two survivors. Anna, the vampire who didn't crave blood and the ship's doctor, Clemens (Carey Hawkins) who managed to survive for no other reason than he was purely lucky, or wearing plot armor. 

 

What I ruined this movie for me was the ending. It completely ignored the book and seemed to open this up for a potential series. I am surprised they didn't name Clemens Van Helsing to make the story even worse. I am just trying to figure this out. So, all the old world superstitious sailors got wiped out by Dracula, but the man of science, Clemens, was able to survive because he didn't believe in tales? But they were locked on a ship at sea with an actual MONSTER. Science or not, a monster doesn't care what you believe, He's going to kill you. 

 

In conclusion, I would call this okay at best. The special effects were pretty good. The story had a bunch of departures that annoyed me. If they had called this Vampire Ship or something not relayed to the story of Dracula, I would've been okay with it. But they took a chapter out of a book and ignored the rest of it? Come on, that's just sloppy writing. 

 

AMAZON