Not receiving an official release in the UK, and not getting a DVD/Bluray release until the beginning of this year, The Last Voyage of the Demeter will have been an easy one to miss. But it recently started streaming on Prime, so I thought it was time to take a look.
For those unfamiliar, in the Bram Stoker novel the story of Dracula is told through a series of letters and journal/diary entries. The section on which this film is based is the log of the Demeter, the ship that transports Dracula to England.
This isn’t the first time that this section of the story has received attention. In the BBC three part series from 2020, created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, the second episode is dedicated to this part of the story.
So, the Demeter sets sail with a cargo of 50 wooden crates filled with earth. It’s departure watched by some worried looking gypsies crossing themselves having delivered the crates and being well aware of what they contain.
On board is captain Eliot played by Liam Cunningham, who travels with his young grandson, and his trusted first mate Wolchek, played by Dave Dastmalchian in a rare non DC or Marvel role. The rest of the crew is made up of a variety of colourful characters with varying accents, including Clemens, a well spoken medic travelling back to England having found it hard to find a place to practice medicine due to the colour of his skin, it’s 1897 remember.
Once out at sea we begin to realise that all is not well, as the men start to feel uneasy and we get some early shadowy glimpses of an emaciated Count not yet at full health. Things are made more complicated by the discovery of a stowaway, a young woman called Anna, who is in dire need of a blood transfusion due to her being somewhat lacking in that department and covered in bite marks. Clemens does the honours and it is soon discovered that Anna was just a snack to get the Count to the ship, where he’d have a living buffet to get him to England.
So, the crew start to get bumped off, or turned before bursting into flames, all leading to a big finale where people make noble sacrifices and Anna gets a moment to be a bit of a girl boss, all to prevent the count making it to the shores of England.
Except, it’s all a bit messy. It’s beautifully shot, and there are some moments that create a suitably creepy atmosphere as the crew patrol the deck, particularly at the beginning when the Count hasn’t yet fully revealed himself, but it never quite gets to that point where you’re on the edge of your seat, and more could have been made of the tight claustrophobic spaces aboard ship.
There are some fine performances, especially from Liam Cunningham as the captain, who is given a little more emotional material to get his teeth into with the addition of his young grandson being on board. A character that isn’t in the original source material, neither for that matter are Clemens and Anna, but when you’re adapting a segment of a story that is less than two thousand words long into a two hour film, you have to get creative. Having said that, I think it could easily have a good twenty minutes cut from it’s running time.
There’s a tacked on ending where our lone survivor, no spoilers, vows to track down this evil, because of course Dracula makes it to England, but it all seems a little unnecessary. Unless of course they were hoping to create another franchise, or God help us, a Dracula multiverse, now that would be terrifying. Although both of these are unlikely now due to the films poor showing at the box office.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter is currently streaming on Amazon prime.
