The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023) 1h 58m
Director: Andre Ovredal
Writers: Bragi F. Schut; Zak Olkewicz; Bram Stoker
Starring: Corey Hawking; Aisling Franciosi; Liam Cunningham
By Paul Bernardo paulieb2003@gmail.com
So this movie is adapted from a single chapter from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, called The Captain’s Log. This section is largely left out of most Dracula movies or just skimmed over. It’s the voyage from Romania to London, and how The Count of Darkness got there, and the passengers he haunted on his way over.
Liam Cunningham plays Captain Elliot. You may know him from Game of Thrones. He was Jon Snow’s right hand man who had the great line – “nothing fucks you harder than Time”. Yes I still remember, because yes, it’s a fantastic line! Anyway, Liam is fantastic in this, as is the star, Corey Hawkins who plays a young London doctor who could only get work in Romania because of the color of his skin. Even in Romania, he had some problems holding work, so he volunteers for the voyage back to his home country.
Andre has not done much, but what he has done was horror films, and scary stories and stuff, so he knows the genre very well. I must say he is a capable director, and did a fine job with this film and this material. The mood was right, acting was good, pacing was great, make up and wardrobe were on par with any other period piece like this. Andre did the best he could with the material he had. It’s basically Die Hard on a boat, with Dracula instead of Under Siege with Steven Seagal. The cool thing is, Dracula is not famous yet – so no one can comprehend what kind of beast is doing this.
There is one girl, that Dracula brought on board to slowly feed from during his voyage to London. The crew accidentally frees her and saves her life through blood transfusions, forcing Dracula to come out and start a calculated feeding frenzy.
This Dracula stays in bat form – so you never really see him as The Count, with the cape and all that. This is raw, gruesome, hungry, Dracula, and he means to feed by any means necessary. So
if you come aboard looking for the suit and the cape and the white face – forget it. This thing is more giant bat than anything else.
The 2 hours goes by very quickly here, and it’s a good piece of entertainment. The story being what it is, there is not much to improve on. You learn, along with the doomed crew, the traits of Dracula and what he can do to his horrified victims. I give this film a full ray of sunshine – even though the weather in it was horrible. I suggest you see this if you like Dracula and all that he brings. See ya next week!
