On a simple journey to England, Captain Eliot (Liam Cunningham), and his crew, including a doctor, Clemens (Corey Hawkins), and his grandson, Toby (Woody Norman), find that someone and something is on board that shouldn’t be. Taken from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Last Voyage of the Demeter is the story of Dracula, as he makes his way to a new land to feed off the unsuspecting locals. This crew must do what they can to stop him before it’s too late.
Like tends to be one of the most important things in a film of this nature, I went into this film wondering how often we would see Dracula (or if we’d ever see him at all). It can sometimes be challenging to physically develop such an important character, and films can run the risk of sinking themselves if they don’t deliver aesthetically. The Last Voyage of the Demeter doesn’t suffer from what exists in this regard, but I’d be lying if I said the animation was anything other than average. Dracula makes his way into frame far more often than I anticipated, and there are moments when I believe that the mediocrity that existed here would have been better left unseen. There would have been more suspense, even more horror had The Last Voyage of the Demeter left Dracula offscreen on some occasions.
With that, I believe that Director André Øvredal knows that he is taking a risk here. I believe that he understands that seeing Dracula in a less-than-spectacular fashion could lead to disappointment by viewers. However, there are many instances when the character simply exists in the shadows, and his massive and abnormal stature plays a grandiose role in developing horror and suspense. Øvredal takes calculated risks throughout the course of The Last Voyage of the Demeter, and I think they pay off. Suspense exists from beginning to end, and the way in which Dracula is used, even if he oversteps just a bit, works in this regard.
Everything works together in this horror film; everything carries everything else–and without each and every aspect working effectively, everything falls apart. That’s the case with the physical development of Dracula, and that’s the case with the sound and lighting as well. While, again, Øvredal oversteps just a bit in using Dracula on screen, the character is brilliantly supplemented by harrowing sound and an often absence of light. The Last Voyage of the Demeter pulls from Stoker’s classic tale, one that has survived far longer than most literature, and this film does it justice. It has to find ways to implement those moments of terror that existed in the novel more than one hundred years ago, and it does.
The film is loud, and leans heavily into the sound that is taking place not right in front of us, but off screen. Viewers constantly wonder what is going to happen next, constantly trying to figure out what terror lies around the corner for the characters, and sound helps to strengthen that feeling throughout The Last Voyage of the Demeter. With the sound, I was pulled into the film and to the edge of my seat–and this aspect of the film never relents.
Every single person, even the nobodies that exist for just seconds in The Last Voyage of the Demeter, is fantastic. There always seems to be one character in these films that fails to entertain the way that viewers had hoped; that they just don’t fit the bill somehow–but that’s not the case with this film. From Hawkins, to Cunningham, all the way down to the most unimportant character, every single actor fills their shoes with grace and passion. The acting supplements everything, and everything supplements the actors. These actors were set up for success, and they took advantage of the opportunity.
I expected an average film, something incapable of living up to the legend that is Bram Stoker’s most revered novel. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Everything from the light and sound, to the meticulous development of the story, to the beautiful acting made The Last Voyage of the Demeter enjoyable. It was haunting, scary, and immensely entertaining; it’s everything that viewers could have hoped for and more.
Directed by André Øvredal.
Written by Bragi F. Schut, Zak Olkewicz, & Bram Stoker.
Starring Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian, Chris Walley, Jon Jon Briones, Stefan Kapicic, Martin Furulund, Nikolai Nikolaeff, Woody Norman, Javier Botet, etc.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐½/10
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