There’s a widely-referenced moment in F.W. Murnau’s silent horror classic Nosferatu (1922), where a terrified sailor ventures below deck to find that coffins situated in the schooner’s cargo have become infested with rats. As the man looks on, a stiffly postured Count Orlok rises creakily from his wooden casket, in a 101-year-old shot that, to this day, remains genuinely unsettling. The timelessness of Murnau’s film can be owed much to Max Schreck, the otherwise-obscure German actor who gave such a convincing performance as Orlok that some have hypothesized that he really was a vampire. His design, a far cry from Bela Lugosi’s more romantic bloodsucker, suggests a presence more beast than man. It’s the same type of humanoid monster that haunts The Last Voyage of the Demeter, director André Øvredal’s (Trollhunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe) noble but fundamentally limp attempt to stretch Nosferatu’s most famous shot into a feature-length film.
Not that there wasn’t some promise. Dracula’s maritime voyage in Bram Stoker’s original novel lasts for around a chapter, told entirely through the perspective of a captain’s log. Øvredal’s film opens with text informing us as such, that we are about to witness the events that led to the doomed ship’s derelict arrival on English shores. Segments of this log are intermittently narrated in voice-over by Captain Eliot (Liam Cunningham), though this gradually dissipates as the story goes on. Instead, our protagonist is Clemens (Corey Hawkins), a doctor who, down on his luck, joins the Demeter for its European voyage. Unbeknownst to the crew, which also includes first mate Wojchek (David Dastmalchian) and a young boy named Toby (C’mon C’mon breakout Woody Norman, misused here), there’s some vicious cargo aboard. When Clemens discovers and rescues a seeming-stowaway girl named Anna (Aisling Franciosi), he unwittingly causes the grisly bloodsucker to awaken and look elsewhere on the ship for food.
Though its premise is inherently lacking in stakes (we know exactly what’s going to happen from the very beginning, even without the unnecessary “four weeks ago” framing device), a 19th-century ocean-bound vampire story holds a lot of potential for being a ghoulish good time. As demonstrated by Robert Eggers’ masterful The Lighthouse in 2019, a period-accurate horror tale that leans into the atmosphere and mythos of the deep sea can be a unique and otherworldly experience. With a creaky schooner like the Demeter as a setting, Øvredal has plenty of space to build out a gothic creature feature that brings Dracula back to his cinematic roots as an authentically terrifying force of nature. And he does, mostly… but it’s somehow not enough. The screenplay, written by Bragi Schut Jr. and Zak Olkewicz, essentially ports the plot of Alien into a seabound setting, crafting a crew of irritatingly stupid and disposable meat sacks to get picked off one by one. Demeter’s Dracula lacks the unknown quality of the Xenomorph, and despite allusions to Stoker’s mythos, feels pretty much like any other movie monster.
This wouldn’t be an issue if the movie was at all scary, but it mostly isn’t. Every one of Dracula’s appearances is punctuated by an obnoxious jump scare sound effect, as well as bits where the scares aren’t even genuine, such as when someone unexpectedly puts their hand on another person’s shoulder (horror filmmakers, please stop doing this!) DP Tom Stern’s cinematography emphasizes shallow focus close-ups that too often minimize the presence of the ship, while the film’s copious bloodletting is obscured by dark, murky nighttime lighting and an overbearing score. It’s a shame, because Øvredal actually shows some boldness in his horror provocations. No one on the ship is safe from the uncaring monster that terrorizes them, and those sensitive to animal or child harm may be in for a bit of a mean-spirited shock. The creaky sound design of the ship sporadically elicits effective atmosphere, as do the brief moments where Øvredal’s nasty wit, so prevalent in Trollhunter (2010), is allowed to shine through. Finally, Dracula’s design is actually kind of cool. Outfitted with spindly, batlike wings, he resembles a gargoyle-type figurehead on a boat. The film’s sound design makes ample use of the haunting swooshes that propel him through the moonlit fog.
There’s a decided lack of quality vampire media that’s come out in the last few years. The Last Voyage of the Demeter takes cues from some of the more notable ones, but to lesser effect. If you’re looking for an emotionally stirring, poignant vampire story with some grisly thrills, you’d be better off checking out Mike Flanagan’s miniseries Midnight Mass, a work Demeter borrows heavily from. Audiences looking for an authentic, atmosphere-soaked 19th-century maritime mystery are recommended to try out the indie video game Return of the Obra Dinn. Hell, if you’re simply looking for an isolated location-set creature feature, you could just watch, I don’t know, Alien? It’s impossible for the story to overcome its inherent lack of utility. There’s even a sequel tease at the end, but for what? Questionable accent aside, Hawkins does his best with an ill-serving script. Supporting players like Cunningham and Dastmalchian fare slightly better, since their hammier performances are a better match for the film’s outsized tone. Franciosi easily gives the best performance, but even her efforts seem like a bit of a waste on this particular material. As the charred and barren Demeter finally lands on English shores, it’s hard not to get the sense that this underbaked and overlong film, like most of its crew, is largely dead on arrival.
Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures
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