TSJ Reviews The Last Voyage of the Demeter
It’s been a while since I reviewed a movie on my blog, but the one I watched this past Saturday evening prompted me to do so. You see, critics weren’t so hot on The Last Voyage of the Demeter, and reviews hurt the box office, but I enjoyed it very much.
It hit all the boxes for me. It was moody, scary and atmospheric with an intense and claustrophobic setting, great set pieces, good characters, amazing art design, and a fantastic and chilling monster. The movie was a bomb, however, grossing under $22 million dollars against a $45 million dollar budget. Why?
Movie: The Last Voyage of the Demeter
- Director: Andre Ovredal
- Writers: Bram Stoker, Bragi F. Schut, Zak Olkewicz
- Studio: Dreamworks Pictures, Reliance Entertainment
- Distributor: Universal Pictures
- Running Time: 119 minutes
- Cast: Corey Hawkins, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian, Aisling Franciosi
- Music: Bear McCreary
- Budget: $45 million
- Box Office: $21.8 million
- Release Date: August 11, 2023
- Tagline: “The Legend of Dracula is Born.”
- Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime
Very Mild Spoilers Below
The idea for the movie originated from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. A single chapter of the book only five pages long involved Dracula’s journey from Bulgaria to England. It was described in the form of a Captain’s log. The monster shipped himself in a crate in the ship’s hold, along with soil from his Transylvanian homeland. (Vampires need to sleep on soil from their place of origin, according to the rules.) During the journey, he fed on the crew, and the ship eventually arrived at the coast near Whitby, derelict and empty. It’s all told in the log, and it’s a great setup for a more detailed movie, which we have here in The Last Voyage of the Demeter.
The Captain of Demeter is portrayed by Liam Cunningham from Game of Thrones, and Corey Hawkins from BacKkKlansman and Kong: Skull Island. Once the characters have been introduced and the ship gets underway, mysterious events begin happening, and soon Clemons — an English-educated medical doctor — discovers a crate of soil in the hold containing a half-dead woman, Aisling Franciosi, also from Game of Thrones.
It’s a great start to the story, and as the days tick by, the terror increases and soon tragic — and gory — events escalate.
I have to give props to the filmmakers and screenwriters. There aren’t too many characters. There are only ten in the crew and one dog — a Labrador retriever — some livestock and a bunch of rats. The art design is brilliant. The ship at night in fog and fighting high seas is beautiful. When the storm hits and the lightning flashes, it becomes art. With the monster terrorizing the crew and the storm ravaging Demeter, the tension is palpable.
The monster is also scary as hell. The producers definitely took notes from Nosferatu and other iterations of the Dracula story. The monster possesses supernatural properties as well, and doesn’t stay confined to one area of the ship. And the filmmakers don’t keep it hidden, either. Once the ship is away from land, the monster appears in plain sight for the viewer — and the victims. It can change slightly as well, though I won’t give anything away here.
The sets are well designed. The cabins and spaces are claustrophobic and resemble the period well. There are many places to hide … though sometimes the monster is in plain sight, if you look hard enough. The few scenes on land are effective, especially the bookend segments in England.
So what are the drawbacks to the film? There seem to be many time jumps while the ship is en route to England. Some nights are skipped, I guess, because the monster does not emerge to kill each evening, and these are glossed over by the Captain’s narration. Another might be that we already know the outcome to the story, although the filmmakers do have some surprises for us.
In the end, critics killed the movie with poor reviews, and that’s unfortunate because The Last Voyage of the Demeter had everything I’d hoped for. It was scary, intense, beautiful to look at, and the artistry and monster design was incredible. It’s currently on Amazon Prime; give this one a watch. It’s definitely worth your time.
TSJ’s Rating: 7.5/10
— Timothy S. Johnston, 10 October 2024
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A mysterious assassin has murdered Cliff Sim, Chief Security Officer of the underwater colony, Trieste. Cliff was a mountain of a man, highly trained, and impossible to defeat in combat. And yet …
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The other books in The Rise of Oceania series by Timothy S Johnston:
The War Beneath 9781771484718
The Savage Deeps 9781771485067
Fatal Depth 9781554555574
An Island of Light 9781554555819
The Shadow of War 9781554556007
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THE SAVAGE DEEPS: FIRST PLACE 2020 CYGNUS Award Winner, 2019 GLOBAL THRILLER Awards Finalist, 2022 Kindle Book Awards Semi-Finalist; 2019 CLUE Award Shortlister
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