Title – The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)

Director – André Øvreadl (Troll Hunter) 

Cast – Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian

Plot – A ship on a voyage from Bulgaria to England discovers its journey across The Black Sea may not be the smooth sailing ride they hoped for when a series of grizzly murders take place at the hands of a powerful force. 

“A boat without rats – such a thing is against nature”

Review by Eddie on 25/09/2023

One of those films you wish you could appreciate more and more readily recommend, André Øvreadl’s well-filmed horror with a strong sense of production values may aesthetically be pleasing but its rather dull story and inability to provide us with decent scares or characters to care about makes its close to two hour voyage on the high seas one that quickly has the wind taken out of its sails. 

Based on a small segment of Bram Stokers oft-adapted Dracula tale, The Last Voyage of the Demeter had an opportunity to give fans of the famed blood sucker a chance to explore a little known element of Dracula’s voyage to England and with Øvreadl proving in the past with The Autopsy of Jane Doe that he can do singular setting horror efficiently, this decently budgeted feature appeared as though it could’ve been one of 2023’s B movie delights with a future in the cult circuit but in final execution offers up not much to celebrate outside of a few gory and unexpected moments. 

Working with a talented if far from A-list cast that includes Straight Outta Compton’s Corey Hawkins as curious doctor Clemens, Game of Throne’s Liam Cunningham as the Demeter’s captain Eliot, The Nightingale breakout star Aisling Franciosi as stowaway Anna and regular movie villain David Dastmalchian as the ships right hand man Wojchek, Øvreadl not only had a decent chunk of cash to splash on his films production but had enough at his disposal elsewhere to suggest Voyage could’ve been something worth noting, making this a curiously bloodless affair that doesn’t appear to be at home as a straight up horror or a thriller. 

Starting out solidly enough as the Demeter’s array of colourful crew members begin their seemingly straight forward journey from Bulgaria to England only to discover their ships cargo may in fact hold a very deadly entity, once the bodies start piling up and with it the collection of odd character decisions and motivations take hold there’s not a lot holding everything together here as the films grove loses a lot of momentum and scare factor once we see the poorly CGI Drac roaming about a small ship that people seem to think is ok exploring by themselves despite a clearly murderous beast sharing their vessel with them.  

There’s some inventive enough deaths and some fun little set pieces scattered throughout Voyage’s travels but an overall prevailing sense of drabness that permeates through this whole exercise making it a film that appears to be aimed at no one specifically in hopes that its unique setting and set-up is enough to cover the fact its characters and attempt at creating white knuckle tension leave a lot to be desired. 

Final Say – 

A mostly toothless affair that is saved by some great production design and a few gory moments that will have you squirming, The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a missed opportunity to shine a light on a different element to the Dracula story than we have usually had delivered in the cinematic space. 

2 crates of dirt out of 5