The Last Voyage of the Demeter literally takes a chapter from Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula. This chapter in the legendary novel that details Dracula’s arrival in England via a sailing ship named the Demeter is pretty scarily effective. It shows the ship beaching itself on the shores of England, with its crew all dead--and, with Dracula apparently on the loose ashore. It creates a dreadful, ominous tone that informs the rest of the story.
And I haven’t given anything away by revealing the ending, because the film itself opens on that very same scene: the Demeter beached on the rocks, with the police and locals gathering around the stricken ship and discovering its horrors. This opening serves as a framing device for the rest of the film, which is told in flashback. But while that chapter shows what happened after the voyage, The Last Voyage of the Demeter attempts to fill in the gaps of the voyage itself.
Or, at least it tries to.
Horror fans--both fanatical and casual--know that everybody aboard the Demeter is trapped with Dracula himself. So the viewer goes into this film already knowing a great deal. But The Last Voyage of the Demeter doesn’t really shed any new light on the Dracula story, instead showing the characters each slowly becoming aware that there is something inhuman aboard, stalking them all.
But do they try to fight back? No. For the better part of the film, the characters act completely crazy by doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, all while Dracula picks them off. And wouldn’t one think, after a certain point, that Dracula would just drop all the pretense of hiding and just devour everybody in one fell swoop? This movie is another annoying example of characters doing stupid things because the uninspired script requires them to do so--and, as a result, there are long sections of the film where it winds up being pretty boring.
The production values are all very well done, making us feel as if we’re really aboard a 19th century sailing ship. And the make up effects are also superb, with Dracula being presented as a Nosferatu-like bat creature. When this monster unfurls his wings during a raging storm, he’s a pretty impressive sight to behold. The film shows Dracula flying around the ship often, usually taunting his victims just before putting the bite on them.
But, this also brings up another problem. If Dracula was in full bat mode--with wings--near the end of the voyage, then why didn’t he just fly away once the Demeter got within spitting distance of England? Instead, the film has him engaged in a battle royal aboard the ship just as it’s floating precariously close to the shores of England. Wouldn’t it make more sense for Dracula to just leave the few survivors behind while he goes to set up shop in his new home? Assuming they survive the ship wreck, the survivors would be treated like ranting lunatics by the authorities, anyway.
That would be a much better ending than the problematic one here that desperately tries to set up a direct sequel between Dracula and one of the surviving characters, which falls flat. Filling in the gaps of an old and beloved tale with a prequel can work, but it takes a really good script, and when the script is lacking, then it just becomes a clunky mess that winds up rewriting the original tale itself while creating plot holes. I have to give the filmmakers credit for trying to approach the Dracula legend from a different angle, but I just wish they had done a better job at it. --SF
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