‘The Last Voyage Of The Demeter’ Review: An Atmospheric Voyage Short Of Horrifying Surprises

Valerie Complex
·4 min read
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In the saturated cinematic world of bloodsuckers, it’s important to carve a niche to help the film stand out from its predecessors. For André Øvredal’s The Last Voyage of the Demeter, the visual palette drenched in melancholic grays and blues are effective in creating atmosphere, but the film falls prey to predictability.

Written by Bragi F. Schut and Zak Olkewicz and starring Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, David Dastmalchian, Woody Norman and Liam Cunningham, it’s no secret Universal is desperate to get its monster cinematic universe off the ground. This entry into the monster lore is just another backdoor pilot to try and upstart a cinematic Monster universe that may never come to fruition.

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The Last Voyage begins in Whitby, England 1897, where the Demeter is shipwrecked, and desolate. The local police discover and try to investigate but are too spooked to continue. The film then backtracks to four weeks earlier in Romania. The Demeter is docked and looking for crew to help take cargo to London. Clemens (Hawkins), a Cambridge-educated man looking to return to England, saves Captain Eliot’s (Cunningham) grandson Toby (Norman) from getting crushed by a large crate. Clemens is then invited on board to work. There are several boxes of cargo, all labeled with ominous dragon crest symbols that weirds out the local Romanians who can’t wait for the ship to leave their shores.

On the Demeter, things run smoothly at first but are shaken up by the arrival of Anna (Franciosi), a stowaway within the cargo. She’s on the verge of dying and is administered a blood transfusion to save her life. While the woman is unconscious, things fall a part as the animals on board are killed via blood drainage. This is when the crew turns on each other, blaming one another for the incident, and one isolated member is confronted by Dracula himself. As they discover what they are dealing with, and their chances of survival shrink with each passing moment, they must decide whether to abandoned ship or stop the creature before it gets to its destination.

Øvredal, without a doubt, has a commendable directorial eye. The atmospherics he achieves in the claustrophobic bowels of the Demeter are reminiscent of Ridley Scott’s iconic Alien — a small crew, tight quarters, isolated amidst the wide and unforgiving space. The connections of human vulnerability against nature’s vastness, much like space in Alien, well underscores the horror. However, the director’s pursuit of the balance of horror and drama is let down by the screenplay; the writers unfortunately offer nothing refreshing. Each move Dracula makes is predicted well in advance, making the Count less a creature of terror and more an expected inconvenience.

The film doesn’t just borrow atmospheric notes from iconic predecessors. The creature design takes a page out of the Nosferatu look-book and fares better when rendered in practical effects with Dracula actor Javier Botet. However, some sequences are ruined by obvious VFX that squander the moments of terror by making the audience aware of the artificiality on screen.

It is the cast that truly prevents the film from sinking into cinematic oblivion. Hawkins delivers a memorable performance as Clemons, anchoring the narrative and providing a much-needed pulse to the story. Anna showcases smarts, proving that the characters could have been more than just lambs for the slaughter if given a stronger script.

In essence, The Last Voyage of the Demeter is an atmospheric journey that promises much but delivers little. There are moments of brilliance, especially in its practical character design and the occasional spine-chilling scene, but it feels longer than it actually is. In the ongoing quest of Universal to discover that perfect concoction of horror, intrigue and storytelling, it seems the hunt continues.

Title: The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Distributor: Universal
Release date: Friday, August 11
Director: André Øvredal
Screenwriters: Bragi Schut Jr, Zak Olkewicz
Cast: Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, Woody Norman, David Dastmalchian, Jon Jon Briones, Stefan Kapicic, Nikolai Nikolaeff, Javier Botet
Rating: R
Running time: 1 hr 58 min

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