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Review by Colin Patron

The last voyage of the demeter 2023 ★★★.

Watched Aug 27 , 2023

Colin’s review published on Letterboxd:

I love vampires. Let me watch a vampire movie and I’m going to have a good time. It’s pretty funny to follow up two of the “greatest” movies in cinema history with this but to think I wasn’t going to take advantage of national cinema day is frankly ridiculous. 

Yet another movie where I have a topical tattoo! How fun.

There are some glaring plot holes and some grade A horror movie character decisions in this that bring it down but the ensemble cast is great and there are some good shots and scares to be had. I have been captain of the David Dastmalchian fan club for a while now and this does nothing to change that. I recently saw in an interview that he wanted to be a Bond villain. Let him cook.

I like a horror movie this is willing to be a little mean and I think this movie, especially the kid scene is at least a little mean.

I think one of the more disappointing aspects of this film is simply knowing Øverdal directed The Autopsy of Jane Doe. That is such a taught and nerve wracking tight horror movie that, while this is a fun theater experience, this does not live up to. Definitely was good enough to make me curious about what he does next.

To quote John Darnielle, “Damn these vampires”

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Movie Review – The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)

August 29, 2023 by Robert Kojder

The Last Voyage of the Demeter , 2023.

Directed by André Øvredal. Starring Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian, Chris Walley, Stefan Kapičić, Martin Furulund, Nikolai Nikolaeff, Woody Norman, Jon Jon Briones, Javier Botet, Graham Turner, Nicolo Pasetti, Christopher York, and Love Yonk.

A crew sailing from Carpathia to England find that they are carrying very dangerous cargo.

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, The Last Voyage of the Demeter wouldn’t exist.

Whether or not one has or hasn’t read Bram Stoker’s Dracula (or is generally familiar with the vampire), it’s fairly clear where The Last Voyage of the Demeter is going to end up. As such, director André Øvredal doesn’t necessarily bother trying to misdirect, looking at the remains of the now derelict Demeter, a Russian schooner with a crew unknowingly transporting Dracula among the cargo. It’s one chapter in the iconic book, here blown up and fleshed out with one or two character-based twists along the way, into an atmospheric two hours that may not take full advantage of its premise and intriguing character dynamics but is elevated by a strong ensemble injecting enough emotion to offset a subpar script from Bragi F. Schut and Zak Olkewicz.

As a man comes across the captain’s log (which is also the title of the book chapter) amidst the wreckage and begins reading from it, the film flashes back to the beginning, introducing viewers to Captain Elliot (Liam Cunningham). He is prepping for a lengthy journey from Carpathia to London, adding on to his crew in the form of a doctor in Corey Hawkins’ Clemens, who earns a spot on the ship and trust from the captain upon saving his son Toby (Woody Norman) from suffering an accidental fatal disaster.

Given that Clemens is also a Black man in 1897, it’s no spoiler to say that the entire crew is not welcoming, even becoming suspicious and accusatory once things start bumping in the night at sea. When pressed to explain why a doctor is interested in going on such an arduous voyage, he mentions that there is evil in the world and that his desire is to make sense of it.

Needless to say, Clemens gets more than he bargained for on that front, also thrust into the standard inner battle between strictly following science and acknowledging that a demon is aboard the ship. And while The Last Voyage of the Demeter is more concerned with Dracula (terrifying when played by Javier Botet, and less so when relying on CGI mayhem) viscerally picking apart and sucking the crew’s blood one by one, the idea of the vampire as a symbol for that makes the film a tad bit more chilling.

Alongside a ragtag group that includes racists, religious nuts, hotheaded first mates, and drinkers, is the discovery of a woman drained of blood. Clemens takes it upon himself to perform a blood transfusion, much to the crew’s chagrin, who would rather not deal with the problem and focus on getting the cargo to London since they are promised a significant bonus if they get there within a certain amount of time. Once the woman, comes to (but not before some brutal, bloody losses along the way), she reveals herself to be Anna (Aisling Franciosi), connected to Dracula, also providing some familiar backstory. However, she also delivers a nuanced, heartbreaking performance.

Again, since this is just one chapter of Dracula , there is no spoiler in saying that The Last Voyage of the Demeter is an exercise in watching these characters getting killed off one by one (likely able to predict the order in which they die as the film goes on). Naturally, some are easier to care about than others, with André Øvredal (who has been building up quite the horror reputation for himself) unafraid to head to some dark, disturbing places that ratchet up the intensity and descent into madness.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter still has the occasional jump scare to be expected from studio horror and some unfortunate-looking CGI storms, complete with an unnecessary stinger ending. However, the tension is here, effectively pulling off this Alien -inspired take on Dracula . It’s the last voyage, but hopefully not André Øvredal’s last endeavor in exploring his take on the world of Dracula .

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★  / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check  here  for new reviews, follow my  Twitter  or  Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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The Last Voyage of the Demeter

Out on the wine-dark sea.

• Aug 11, 2023
• Dir. by André Øvredal

Note: This review was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.

The Victorian-set horror film has been somewhat out of fashion for a few decades, having achieved its last surge of true studio-backed popularity in the 1990s. That period arguably ended with the Hughes Brothers’ phantasmagorical but flawed Jack the Ripper adaptation, From Hell (2001), and the subgenre hasn’t really recovered since. Oh, there have been occasional notable efforts like Joe Johnston’s underrated remake of The Wolfman (2010) and Guillermo del Toro’s opulent gothic romance Crimson Peak (2015), but cinematic chills set in the gaslight glow of the 19th century remain few and far between.

The most immediately notable aspect of André Øvredal’s new feature, The Last Voyage of the Demeter , then, is that it is a full-throated Victorian horror picture in the Year of Our Lord 2023, one produced by DreamWorks and given a proper theatrical release by Universal, no less. For genre devotees who are jonesing for the distinctive pleasures of a lushly produced, 1800s-set supernatural thriller, Øvredal’s film will doubtlessly feel like a properly bloody steak dinner after a long, demoralizing fast. It’s not a completely satisfying meal, owing primarily to some clunky writing and editing. Various versions of the story allegedly spent years in Development Hell, and although Øvredal’s enthusiasm for the material is obvious, it’s also clear that the producers lacked a clear understanding of how to shape or market the film. (Witness the laughable, anachronistic use of a certain Smashing Pumpkins song in the feature’s trailer.)

One can at least understand why Hollywood has been so keen to make this film for so long, and why Øvredal and his collaborators embraced the project with marked gothic-horror fanboy glee. The premise is fairly irresistible, for, as cannier genre fans have already guessed, The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a Dracula story. Specifically, it’s a “sidequel”: Taking inspiration from a single chapter in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, it recounts the story of how the ageless, bloodthirsty Count Dracula journeyed from his Carpathian fastness to the streets of London via the sailing ship Demeter .

In Stoker’s book, the “Captains Log” chapter constitutes a compelling horror mini-narrative in its own right, the tale of a doomed vessel recounted from the perspective of her captain in a pseudo-epistolary style. Øvredal’s film zeroes in on the taut, creepshow potential of this story-within-a-story, observing that it effectively strips Dracula of 120 years of pop-cultural baggage and turns him loose on a group of ordinary working-class folk who have no notion that they are just the nameless, off-screen victims in a Dracula movie. Furthermore, when you trap a crew on a ship with a ravenous monster in the middle of nowhere, you basically have Alien (1979), and Alien is never a bad template for a horror movie.

Opening with on-screen text that awkwardly and superfluously explains that, hey, this is a Dracula movie, Øvredal’s feature begins at the end, with the Demeter having run aground on the coast of North Yorkshire. The local constables find no living crew members aboard, but they do uncover a captain’s logbook that records an unbelievable tale. Several weeks earlier, the Demeter sets out from a Bulgarian port on the Black Sea under the command of Captain Eliot (Liam Cunningham) and his first mate, Wojchek (David Dastmalchian). Also aboard are cabin boy Toby (Woody Norman) – who happens to be Eliot’s grandson – the ship’s cook Joseph (Jon Jon Briones), and a salty foursome of colorful but largely interchangeable sailors (Chris Walley, Stefan Kapicic, Martin Fururland, and Nikolai Nikolaeff). Rounding out the small crew is the latest addition and the de facto protagonist, Clemens (Corey Hawkins), a Cambridge-educated physician fallen on hard times, who is eager to return to London even if it means flexing sea legs that he hasn’t used since his maritime childhood.

The bulk of the Demeter ’s cargo consists of 50 enormous wooden crates owned by an anonymous client, each container affixed with a curious dragon seal. It’s an admittedly mysterious charter but also a lucrative one, as it includes a hefty bonus for a speedy journey and early arrival in Britain. The prospect of a big payday initially has the crew in high spirits, but before you can say strigoi , sinister happenings begin to occur aboard the ship, including strange sounds emanating from the hold and slithering shadows glimpsed during the evening watches. The crew’s growing unease is amplified by the discovery of an unconscious Romani woman, Anna (Aisling Franciosi), who apparently stowed away in one of the crates. Clemens takes responsibility for her care, fixating on her peculiar bloodborne affliction, but to the ship’s veteran sailors, the presence of a woman onboard is just another ill omen in an expanding litany of unsettling misfortune. Events swiftly and remorselessly escalate from there to gruesome nocturnal attacks on the onboard livestock and, eventually, on the crew themselves.

A skeptic might assert that knowing exactly how this story ends – Dracula kills everyone and makes landfall in England, roll credits – puts an inherent drag on the situational tension in The Last Voyage of the Demeter . However, Øvredal approaches the material with passion and conviction, treating it less as an accessory story than as a stand-alone, period creature feature. With the exception of a creepy but wholly unnecessary epilogue, the film doesn’t belabor its connection to the source novel or to the story and visuals that have been more popularly received through a century’s worth of theatrical and cinematic adaptations. Øvredal keeps the essence of the film commendably simple: a group of people are physically trapped in a confined environment with a powerful predator that is picking them off one by one. They don’t know they’re the collateral damage in the most famous English-language horror story of all time, so they don’t behave with any kind of meta-awareness of their situation.

Clemens fills the role of the token rationalist, Captain Eliot the seasoned but out-of-his-depth leader, and Anna a tripartite hybrid of exposition-spouting wise woman, trembling damsel-in-distress, and world-weary badass action-lady. The rest of the crew are an anxious, superstitious lot, accustomed to freak weather and strange phenomena, but wholly unprepared for an ancient, ageless evil on the scale of their unwelcome passenger. The Demeter itself makes for a fantastic setting, realized as a series of incredibly tactile sets crafted with splendid attention to period detail. When Clemens initially comes aboard, Toby gives him – and therefore the audience – a quick tour of the ship, elegantly providing a clear sense of the restricted geography that will define the next 90 minutes of bloody terror.

Quite bloody, as it happens. Øvredal embraces the film’s hard R rating with the gusto of a genre aficionado who recognizes that studios don’t exactly give $30 million theatrical horror films free reign these days. Consider this your content warning: The Last Voyage of the Demeter is very gory and at times shocking, stomping on a couple of mainstream horror-movie taboos with the beastly cruelty of a wolf ripping out a deer’s throat. The design of Dracula himself (Javier Botet) is far afield from the caped Transylvanian nobleman of popular conception, starting out as a kind of mewling Eraserhead mutant and evolving into a hairless, needle-fanged chiropteran nightmare that loosely nods towards Nosferatu ’s Count Orlock. The film eschews complex mythology or vampiric rules, keeping the monster lore straightforward: Dracula feeds on living blood, sleeps in the earth of his homeland, and fears the touch of the sun. That’s it.

Cinematographers Roman Osin and Tom Stern – the latter a longtime Clint Eastwood collaborator – contribute significantly to the film’s rich atmosphere, whether the scene in question takes place on the sun-parched upper deck, in gloomy lantern-lit interiors, or in clinging nocturnal sea fog. Credit also goes to the unnerving sound design overseen by Adam Kopland and the score by genre powerhouse Bear McCreary, which shifts smoothly from haunted-house eeriness to thunderous monster action.

Overall, it’s a gratifying nuts-and-bolts period horror movie. However, the film’s generous and exuberant execution unfortunately doesn’t save The Last Voyage of the Demeter from the shoals of some gawky writing and editing. Hawkins is normally a solid performer, but he seems a bit adrift in a role that lacks clear characterization. The film’s attempts to give Clemens a poetic worldview and an empathetic backstory – such as a scene that belatedly and rather bafflingly connects his experiences with racial prejudice to the crew’s current predicament – just come off as clumsy and scattershot, orphans from dozens of successive rewrites. Patrick Larsgaard’s editing has an aggravating habit of scuttling the clear, coherent sense of space that the film is plainly aiming to maintain. The latter half of the feature in particular is positively filthy with abrupt, confusing cuts that betray missing scenes and reek of the sort of ham-fisted studio tinkering that inevitably follows disappointing test screenings. These faults aren’t enough to fatally sink The Last Voyage of the Demeter , but they are enough to demote it from a future minor horror classic to a lavish but imperfect genre exercise.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter opens in theaters everywhere on Friday, Aug. 11.

• Horror , Page to Screen , Period Pieces , Sequels / Prequels / Spinoffs , Thrillers
• Copyright © 2023
• Andrew Wyatt
• Published with Permission

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Film Review: Dracula: The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a serviceable scarer that leans into its genre possibilities with a straightforward brutality

• August 10, 2023
• Film & TV
• Andre Ovredal
• Corey Hawkins
• Liam Cunningham
• The Last Voyage of the Demeter

It seems only fitting that a character as undead as Dracula has an immortal lifespan when it comes to big screen adaptations.  It was only a few months ago we had Nicolas Cage’s iteration in the blackly comic Renfield , and now, in a complete mood shift from his camp goriness, we have Dracula: The Last Voyage of the Demeter to scratch a more gothic, atmospheric itch should you want your Counts a little more vicious; for those playing at home, the film has been released in the US as simply The Last Voyage of the Demeter – the local distributors no doubt hoping the inclusion of Dracula in the title will entice more willing participants come opening weekend.

Because the tale of Dracula itself is one that mostly everyone knows – at least those going into a film with the character as its subject – The Last Voyage of the Demeter has an advantage in that it can build up intrigue surrounding its sub-titular voyage.  The story itself – penned by Bragi F. Schut ( Samaritan ), Stefan Ruzowitzky ( Patient Zero ) and Zak Olkewicz ( Bullet Train ) – is based on a single chapter from Bram Stoker’s Dracula , where the Demeter sailed from a region in Romania to a port town in England, with fifty crates of mysterious cargo on board.

Said mysterious cargo contains, naturally, a hibernating Dracula.  Too bad for the crew on board the Demeter who aren’t aware of such ghoulish possibilities, with the ensemble of relatively interchangeable performers slowly succumbing to a more creature-like Dracula over time; director André Øvredal clearly enjoying himself as the blood and gore splatter increases as every minute of the film’s 118 minute running time ticks over.

Øvredal, a Norwegian filmmaker best known for other genre pieces as Trollhunter and Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark , is aware of how to utilise the atmosphere of mounting dread, and with The Last Voyage of the Demeter primarily playing out at night time, it’s almost consistently an uneasy watch once the crew is out to sea and, unbeknownst to them, Dracula is lurking in the literal shadows.  Though there is an admittedly cyclical mentality to the film at times in how it sets up its stalk-and-kill sequences, it can’t help but be brutally effective in its execution.  It’s also of immense benefit that the Demeter itself is practically its own character in how it is enhanced as the crew’s only form of shelter, whilst simultaneously housing them for their own death.

Of the crew, Corey Hawkins and Liam Cunningham earn the most noticeable points as Clemens, a doctor, and the ship’s captain, Eliot, respectively.  Clemens is already something of a sore point to the crew, having made his way on board under questionable pretences, and, due to the 1890’s period, his ethnicity.  It doesn’t help his case as a black man that he has befriended Anna ( Aisling Franciosi ), a stowaway, who poses a threat to the crew’s rations, but, more importantly, seems to be too aware of the undead passenger who strikes at every nightfall.

Whilst the general reaction to the role of a dark-skinned man and a woman in society at that time has topical relevance to today’s audience, The Last Voyage of the Demeter is never an overtly preachy film, nor does it delve deeply into any of the mythos around the Dracula incarnate.  Unlike the usual human embodiments we see, Dracula here is modelled after the “Nosferatu” aesthetic, and any man-as-monster type narrative is done away with in favour of pure carnage.  It may not be a horror effort with a lot of depth, but it plays to its strengths within its genre walls.

Unlike other portrayals of Dracula, the titular character here may not necessarily stay with you when all is said and done – nor will many of those on board – but as a collective horror film, one that brims with atmospheric uncertainty and well developed tension, Dracula: The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a serviceable scarer that leans into its genre possibilities with a straightforward brutality.

THREE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)

Dracula: The Last Voyage of the Demeter is now screening in Australian theatres.  It will be released as The Last Voyage of the Demeter in theatres in the United States on August 11th, 2023.

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'Abigail' Surpasses Universal's Last Two Vampire Films at the Box Office

The film is now playing in theaters.

The Big Picture

• Abigail surpassed box office milestones, earning more globally than previous vampire films Renfield and The Last Voyage of the Demeter.
• Universal's previous attempts to revitalize the Dracula franchise were box office failures due to audience disinterest in the vampire genre.
• Despite positive critical reception, Abigail still needs to recoup its $28 million budget; Universal may move away from the vampire genre in the future.

Universal’s latest monster film Abigail just passed a milestone at the box office this week. According to a recent report from Bloody Disgusting , the latest vampire flick has earned a total of $28.5 million worldwide so far, officially surpassing the global hauls of last year’s Renfield and The Last Voyage of the Demeter , which earned $26.4 million and $21.7 million, respectively.

Following the critical and financial success of The Invisible Man in 2020, Universal attempted to revitalize the Dracula franchise last year with the release of Renfield , which served as a comedy, and The Last Voyage of the Demeter , a more straightforward horror movie. However, both films would end up becoming box office bombs, which could be attributed to an overall lack of audience interest in the vampire genre. Because of this, it will be interesting to see how Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu remake will perform during the holiday season later this year.

Unlike the aforementioned films though, Abigail debuted as a critical hit, receiving an 83% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes . Carrying a $28 million budget, Abigail still has a big hill to climb if it wants to break even. However, word of mouth continues to remain strong, with the movie only dropping 49.5% on its second weekend. The positive reception will likely help carry the film’s legs in the upcoming weeks until it debuts digitally sometime soon. But needless to say, it’s likely Universal will steer away from Dracula and the vampire genre in the near future as they continue to revitalize their classic monsters, which continues next year with the release of Wolf Man .

‘Abigail’ Serves as a Modern Spin on a Classic Universal Monster Character

Serving as a modern re-imagining of the 1936 film, Dracula’s Daughter , Abigail centers on a group of criminals who kidnap the daughter of a powerful underworld figure and hold her for ransom. However, they soon end up getting more than they bargained for as there is something more sinister than what appears, and soon the would-be kidnapping becomes the ultimate fight for survival. The film stars Alisha Weir as the titular character alongside Melissa Barrera , Dan Stevens , Kathryn Newton , Kevin Durand , Will Catlett , Angus Cloud , and Giancarlo Esposito . Radio Silence duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett direct the film, which is written by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick .

Abigail is now playing in theaters.

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The Last Pearl: Blue Raincoat’s best voyage yet

Theatre: niall henry’s absorbing play about a deep-sea diver is eerily resonant with contemporary concerns.

The Last Pearl: John Carty, Aisling Mannion and Aine Ni Laoighaire in Niall Henry's Blue Raincoat production. Photograph: Peter Martin

The Last Pearl

Space upstairs, project arts centre, dublin.

For audiences who have previously gone on a journey with Blue Raincoat , the most obvious question about The Last Pearl, its latest play about an odyssey, might be: who is it about? Since The Strange Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, in 2003, the company has taken its feet off dry land time and again, telling the stories of Yuri Gagarin ( The First Cosmonaut ), Ernest Shackleton ( Shackleton ) and other explorers from the British Antarctic Expedition (Hunting Darwin).

In an intriguing departure, director Niall Henry and company have decided to make a play about a fictional explorer – a deep-sea diver, hunting for pearls. Unlike those fascinations with 20th-century exploration, the landscape is this time eerily resonant with contemporary concerns: from shadowy edges of the stage, the cast are first seen sending gentle ripples along a long stretch of sea-blue fabric, before building a more incessant procession of ocean waves, to cracks of thunder. A storm is coming.

Through delicately absorbing movements, five performers – Sandra O’ Malley, Aisling Mannion, Áine Ní Laoghaire, Brian Devaney and John Carty – manipulate miniature puppets in short, illuminating vignettes that flow sequentially, like the panels of a storyboard: a scene like a cinematic wide shot depicts a flotilla of sailing boats on the open water, then cedes to reveal a village of stilt houses on the shore. References both architectural and meteorological – there is mention of a typhoon in the play’s description – lean towards the Indo-Pacific, but, in our era of climate crisis, the threat of environmental catastrophe can be felt anywhere.

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The Last Pearl. Photograph: Peter Martin

We see the powerful diver make her deep-sea descents, reaching the ocean floor and gliding along human refuse: sunken rubbish; broken machinery and equipment. That may suggest the thrills of an adventure far from dry land, but, affectionately, Henry also allows us an intimate view into her world, returning us to her home each night and revealing her passions for coastal community, as well as her pregnancy.

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What feels significant is that closeness; since the elegant Shackleton, in 2016, Blue Raincoat has undertaken a journey into wordless puppet-theatre plays. (Its displays feel even more miraculous this time around. Special credit to Barry McKinney, whose lighting design somehow, during a scene where a typhoon devastates the village, manages to make flowing fabric resemble a surge of ocean waves.) A sense of individuality has often been more difficult to achieve.

The Last Pearl is directed by Niall Henry. Photograph: Peter Martin

When the disaster leaves the diver as the sole survivor, it would be easy to expect the story to become about the grief of someone who lost their community. Instead, to the fast guitar strums of Joe Hunt’s evocative music, her boat is seen pushing against the waves, while underwater scenes show her retrieving the symbols of her people. A culture must continue.

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That makes her Blue Raincoat’s most intriguing explorer. As we watch her lay treasures along the sea floor, to lie in wait for her child’s generation to discover, there is something hopeful about this vision of a postdisaster world. Human curiosity is going nowhere.

The Last Pearl, staged by Blue Raincoat , is at Project Arts Centre , Dublin, until Saturday, May 11th; it is touring to the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, from May 30th to June 1st and the Traverse Theatre , Edinburgh, from June 6th to June 8th

Chris McCormack

Chris McCormack is a contributor to The Irish Times specialising in culture

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