Danny's Horror Report: The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)

 Written By: Danny Albers 

The last thing you thought you needed was another Dracula movie. But the Last Voyage of the Demeter was different from any Dracula adaptation I’ve seen before. For one, the setting is a cargo ship at sea. But instead of making Dracula a cunning man-like figure, he’s a monstrous bat-like creature. There is a mixture of gore and suspense, and nobody is safe. There’s an investigative element of the doctor onboard and the captain trying to figure out what is committing these horrific atrocities. The film is a theatrical adaptation of “The Captain’s Log” chapter from the novel Dracula from 1897 written by Bram Stoker. Let’s take a look at what happened in this movie and the significant events that occurred. 

Recap 

The merchant ship Demeter landed in England on August 6, 1897. Whilst investigating, the police find a captain’s log written by The Demeter’s Captain Eliot. We then flashback to a month prior on the coasts of Bulgaria as the ship is hiring its crew for the London voyage. Local Romanian workers bring a box that has a dragon's crest on it. The men seem afraid of the box. They are in a hurry to get out of the area without the box by nightfall. An educated doctor and astronomer named Clemens is trying to get on the boat for work. He’s being refused, likely because he’s black. Clemen’s saves the grandson of the Captain of the Demeter from a falled box. When a member of the crew quits because of the dragon's crest on the box, Clemens is awarded a job on the ship. Once on the ship, and away at sea, another box falls and is opened. Out comes a young girl buried in dirt and with bite marks on her. Clemens begins giving the girl blood transfusions. The people working the night crew begin seeing mysterious figures in the fog of the night, but can’t make anything out. Other strange things begin to happen. One night the crew awakens to find all the animals and livestock killed and destroyed. Included in the dead animals is the dog Huckleberry, who the crew blame his rabidness for the murder of the livestock. The woman awakens and warns the crew of the monster Dracula who’s in a box on the ship, and he feeds on the blood of humans. She was given to Dracula as a slave to provide him the blood he needs to travel such a long distance. Little by little, Dracula begins to pick off the crew of the Demeter one-by-one, including the young boy Toby. The crew tie a crew member Olgaren to the ship's mast because he tried to attack Toby, leading to Toby being bitten by Dracula. Olgaren burns alive when the sun reaches its peak, a fate that also bistills Toby. The crew plan to sink the ship with Dracula on it before it can reach London. All that is left is Clemens, the doctor, and Anna, the woman who was Dracula’s food and put it in the box. A fight breaks out where the two are able to lock Dracula under a collapsed mast. They jump overboard thinking he’s dead. The ship never sinks, and washes ashore. Anna implodes herself willingly in the sun, not wanting to turn into Dracula. The movie ends with Clemens in a pub sometime later as he’s writing his own journal, swearing to not stop hunting Dracula until he kills it. Suddenly, something walks by him making the hair on his neck stand up, and it’s Dracula disguised as an English aristocrat. 

Thoughts 

There are a lot of very shocking moments in this film. You’re not expecting to watch a young boy be murdered, and then later burst into flames. The setting of the film was outstanding, and the acting was quality. I loved that they depicted Dracula as this unstoppable creature. The last couple films were almost like they were casting for James Bond not Dragula. The scenes where the watchmen were on deck at night and Dracula was lurking in the fog was pure nightmare fuel. I like the idea as well that they left things open for a second installment where Clemens is sort of a Van Helsing hunting Dracula across London. There were some inconsistencies, like why Anna didn’t burn in flames the couple times she was exposed to the sunlight, but at the end she imploded when she willingly walked into the sun. I also feel like they could have been far more proactive in finding Dracula during the day. It almost felt like they were just waiting for him to come out at night. Once they realized what they were dealing with, I don’t know why they would decide to elicit their plans to take Dracula when the sun wasn’t out. I didn’t have a ton of expectations for the movie when I decided to watch it, but I’m glad I did. 

Danny’s Movie Grade: ★★★★★★ 6