Dracula has risen once more, this time from the watery depths of development hell! Here to plague the doomed crew of a merchant ship, adapting the chilling “Captain’s Log” chapter from Bram Stoker’s original Dracula novel, in the form of André Øvredal’s Last Voyage of the Demeter. Vying for the title of Prince of Darkness with the long-awaited Nosferatu (2024) and Nicolas Cage’s quirky incarnation of Dracula in Renfield (2024), Last Voyage of the Demeter offers a far more monstrous rendition of the iconic vampire with a wingspan boasting two hours of claustrophobic, ship-bound gore.
You want them to believe that you’re a god! You and I both know that you’re not! You bleed like any of us! You sleep in dirt! You feed!
Clemens
By this point, we all know the story of Dracula: it’s been retold countless times on-screen with the likes of Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee – and even Leslee Nielsen! – iconically portraying the perpetually thirsty Count. Yet there is an underlying pitch that sets Øverdal’s take apart: rather than loosely recounting the entire book, why not focus on one chapter that centres on the horrifying journey from Romania to England and the grisly fate that befell the unassuming crew?
Confined to a single location, out in the middle of the ocean with a small crew compliment, contending with a mysterious stowaway and strange cargo, Last Voyage of the Demeter blends its gothic period horror with gore and creature designs that harkens back to the Hammer days with a heightened sense of doom and dread thanks to its stellar cast and more streamlined story. With excellent performances from Liam Cunningham, Corey Hawkins, Ailing Franciosi and David Dastmalchian, André Øvredal’s choice to contain the events of Dracula make for tense character performances cascading into panic induced conflicts amid an atmospheric, moody backdrop where it is clear as soon as the doomed ship leaves port that there is nowhere to run and fewer places hide.
Captain Eliot: The world cares little for sense, Mr. Clemens. Perhaps it is not meant to be understood but rather experienced and accepted.
Clemens: Perhaps. But I need to get to the heart of it. And understand why the world has so much goodness inside it and yet… isn’t that what all men desire?
With the shift from suave aristocrat with a preference for a literal bloody Mary over wine, in favour of a grotesque man-bat monster, Dracula leans at times heavily on modern horror sensibilities more so than some of his previous incarnations – for better or worse. In particular, throughout the two-hour runtime, the more obviously expendable crew are picked off in gory fashion one-by-one at night, coming to a head with an action-oriented climactic last stand between our last surviving heroes and this films gruesome creature of the night that recalls the Hugh Jackman led gothic-action flick, Van Helsing (2004), more so than a solemn chapter approved by Stoker. As gruesome as Dracula appears, it may disappoint some to know he is a less memorable character than even Claes Bang’s recent 2020 BBC interpretation, where attention is shifted from the count to become more of a psychological character study of the ill-fated crew isolated on the Demeter. It is also worth noting that visually, while adequately dark and moody, the lack of contrast and muted pallet can make it a wash of drab hues.
