The Last Voyage of the Demeter: Doomed from the Start

A ship crashes upon the rocky shore of Whitby England during an August storm, its crew gone accept for the deceased Captain who is tied to the wheel. The only clues to what happened are from the captain’s log which tells the story.  The Demeter has been hired to carry several large crates from Bulgaria to London.  Clemens (Corey Hawkins), a Cambridge trained doctor, desperately wants to get back to England and when the opportunity arises, he joins the crew. Soon after setting sail one of the crates breaks open revealing a nearly dead girl named Anna (Aisling Franciosi).  Through blood transfusions, Clemens was able to save her, but then strange things began to happen.  All the animals aboard the ship are killed and a crew member disappears, believed to have been washed overboard. But once Anna regains her strength, she warns them that there is an evil on board and that they are all doomed.  The crew soon realize she is correct as they begin to be picked off one at a time.  The remaining crew eventually formulate a plan to kill the dreaded beast and begin to put their plan into motion. Can those who are left survive and find a way to escape their fate, or will they all perish? Watch and find out!

The entire movie is based on a single chapter entitled “The Captain’s Log” in the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker and written in 1897. In 2003, Bragi Schut Jr., who is credited as screenwriter, had the idea to write the script after seeing a model of the Demeter that was used in the 1992 movie Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The script has been optioned several times with several different rewrites being performed by various authors and several different production companies, producers and directors have all been involved, until 2019 when Amblin Partners obtained the rights, and it was announced that André Øvredal would direct.  The Last Voyage of the Demeter was released in theatres on August 11, 2023, and on August 29^th was released digitally.

I was a huge fan of the novel and loved the idea of a movie based on what happened to the crew of the doomed ship.  Bragi Schut was inspired by the 1979 movie Alien and wanted to write something with the same claustrophobic vibe and creepy atmosphere.  André Øvredal and cinematographer Tom Stern do an amazing job creating just such a spooky and enclosed feeling.  The camera work is very well done with some excellent visual framing and interesting angles utilizing light and shadow to its fullest.  The music by Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica 2003) sets the appropriate atmosphere pulling elements from Eastern Europe.  Bear is quickly becoming my favorite movie music composer. The script is well written with some wonderful dialogue between the characters that feels real and yet is still poetic and poignant. The story is clever enough, that even though you know the eventual fate of the ship, the ultimate destination for the crew is not necessarily cast in stone. The performances are all adequate, with Corey Hawkins really shining as Clemens.  He is both stern and strong while also being intelligent and compassionate and is a fully relatable character that will appeal to the audience.

Although I very much enjoyed this film and believe it was excellently done, I think there are some elements that were missed that could have been used more fully.  In the film, Dracula is only ever seen as a monster.  He never fully takes human form, and I understand that was intentional as this was not a romanticization of the character and never showing his human side did not give the audience time to develop any sympathy towards the Count.  But at the very end at least, I think we should have seen a very human looking character.  I also wish that they would have utilized some of Dracula’s other abilities, he does summon a mist at the end, but he is also able to change into mist, along with several other animals and control the creatures of the night. These all could have been interesting plot points to develop within the story, but are minor and did not detract from the overall quality of the film.