Being Film #7 for Hooptober 2023
I’ve always been an advocate for the Ebert adage “It’s not what a movie’s about, but how it’s about it.” I still believe it, and on paper what The Last Voyage of the Demeter is about is pretty cool: adapting the chapter from Bram Stoker’s Dracula about the wreck of the Demeter, the ship carrying the vampire and his soil across to England. The novel’s epistolary chapter hints at what happens; the film draws up on that but ultimately suffers despite solid direction from André Øvredal (Trollhunter, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) and a game cast from a weak script and a silly ending. Still , cool vampire though.
THE QUICK SUMMARY: The constable is called when a lighthouse spots a ship wrecked upon the broken shores of England. When they board the vessel they fins no crew, only scenes of intense violence. They find the log of the captain, who goes on to explain what happened ever since picking up mysterious cargo from the Carpathian mountains, all marked with the sign of the Dragon. Soon we’re awash in the backstory of what happened when the crew of the Demeter meets up with a beast none of them are prepared to face.
If there’s a reason you’re coming into The Last Voyage of the Demeter, it’s probably for Øvredal’s take on Dracula, and for the most part I’m here for it. Taking elements from a lot of different aspects (but mainly Murnau’s Nosferatu) the creature starts out much more beast-like, but slowly grows into a bastardized version of humanity the more he feeds. There’s not much more in the way of lore: crosses and crucifix’s have little play here, but we do get the summoning of fog and the pull of those he has bitten and left alive. Øvredal and the script by Zak Olkewicz and Bragi Schut Jr. based on Schut’s original concept wisely leave a lot to the imagination until the final set pieces, but that withholding only serves to emphasize one of the larger issues with the script: for too long the crew seems completely dumbfounded as to how to handle things. At close to two hours long, it’s kind of unforgivable to meander and bumble night after night until the finale.
The cast is pretty game, though, especially David Dastmalchian playing the rough-hewn first mate Wojchek and Corey Hawkins at Clemens, a doctor picked up for the voyage and our ostensible lead. Øvredal has fun getting downright nasty and brutal in his horror, and proves no one is safe, especially young children. He executes what he’s given quite well, and when the film is running it’s slick and sick, and not afraid to linger on someone’s bashed in face.
It’s still a little too long, though – too many days of wandering the ship wondering what’s happening, and then getting picked off night after night. This might have just been my viewing experience, but the beginning feels very CG-heavy with the seams showing: I was expecting a little more grit and dirt with the setting, but everything right down to the rain felt very artificial. A half-dead woman found in one of the crates serves little purpose except for exposition and as a potential partner for Clemens, and that ending stings: it’s cool to see – if only briefly – how Dracula blends in with the people of London, but not so cool that it also kind of sets up a potential sequel with a survivor hell bent on revenge when we all know from the novel there were no survivors.
The Last Voyage of Demeter manages to come up with a (slightly silly) workaround for that, but I have little interest in seeing their version play out against the rest of a story known so well.
Still, cool vampire, though!
Cinema Dual 
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