The Last Voyage Of The Demeter (2023) – Ship Shape

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

Released: 10th August
Seen: 23rd August

In the 1897 novel Dracula, chapter 7 spends most of its time presenting pages from a log from a ship known as the Demeter. The pages from the log show the events that took place on a ship carrying a large quantity of goods from Varna, Bulgaria all the way to Whitby, England. As the journal goes on it becomes apparent that the trip was hijacked by the titular Dracula who slowly picked off the crew. It’s a single chapter, barely even 3000 words long and basically just meant to explain how the titular vampire managed to make it from his home in Bulgaria to England in a time when the only way to do so would’ve been by boat. It’s the kind of thing that most adaptations might make into a quick 2-minute scene, maybe not even fully delve into all the details but the people behind The Last Voyage Of The Demeter looked at that 3000 words and realised that could make for a pretty fun horror flick and thus, we got this enjoyable little treat.

The Last Voyage Of The Demeter doesn’t stray too far from the section of the book, we follow the final voyage of the Demeter where the small crew is just trying to make their way to England but slowly realise that there is something else on the boat with them, that something turning out to be a goddamn vampire who might have started the trip snacking on the livestock and rats that happen to be around the coffin that’s been slipped on board but will eventually just start going through the crew of the ship like it’s an all you can slaughter buffet. 

Hope you’re not expecting a film about Dracula on a boat to be some light fluffy piece of popcorn horror because The Last Voyage Of The Demeter has no desire whatsoever to be light and fluffy. This is a dark intense story set in the rough seas with rough gruff personalities from the assembled crew that take themselves incredibly seriously… and it works. By just completely committing to the core concept and resisting whatever urges there might be to chuckle at the inherent silliness of the idea (because, sorry, “Dracula on a boat” is just funny to say) The Last Voyage Of The Demeter delivers some of the most intense sequences in a film this year.

From the moment that The Last Voyage Of The Demeter begins it makes it very clear the dark tone it’s going for and nails it perfectly, from the intense performances that just captivate from start to finish to amazing cinematography that borders on beautiful before taking a sharp left turn into absolutely pants-shittingly terrifying (Seriously there was a shot that’s just of Dracula standing up while being partially obscured by a table and I had to ram my hand in my mouth to muffle the shocked scream). There isn’t a moment where it feels like the film is forcing it either, it’s just the way that this story demands to be told and it does so to great effect.

The big thing that The Last Voyage Of The Demeter basically acknowledges right off the top is that this is simply an adaptation of part of a chapter from the most famous vampire novel of all time, meaning that even without reading the story you probably can guess how this all will end… largely because they tell you in the opening scene. Doing this is risky, it could end up removing all the tension because you know where everything is going but somehow The Last Voyage Of The Demeter manages to find a way to surprise the audience. It does this in many ways from just being creative in how it uses its scares to surprising brutality to just doing some things that most horror films are afraid to even try, all this gives the film an incredible sense of tension because you might know how this is going to end but you have no idea how it’ll get there and that’s just fun.

The Last Voyage Of The Demeter knows exactly what it’s doing and it does it well, it takes a cool idea that could have been relegated to a 5-minute scene and makes a tense 2 hours out of it without feeling like it’s taking too long. It’s a wild trick to pull off, especially considering the original chapter had roughly the same amount of detail regarding a boat trip as the theme from Gilligan’s Island, but goddamn it does The Last Voyage Of The Demeter pull off its central idea with aplomb. It’s dark, intense and just generally a great time if you want a really good boat-based horror story.