THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER. Before the title character in Bram Stoker’s 1897 epistolary novel Dracula drinks his way through England, he travels there on a ship called the Demeter, as detailed in the chapter titled “The Captain’s Log.” Not to spoil a 126-year-old book further than the movie’s title does, but it’s a rough trip for the crew. The Last Voyage of the Demeter, director André Øverdal’s dark and stormy adaptation of that chapter, keeps faithful to the spirit, if not the letter, of the source material with echoes of Nosferatu (1922). It’s blood in the water to a faction of vampire movie fans — a raw departure from glittering teen vamps, Anne Rice’s lacy sexuality, cat-suited shoot-outs and sci-fi laboratory treatments. Confined to the ship, the story is tightly focused, tossing superfluous conventions overboard in favor of exploring new territory for a stripped down and frightening monster movie.
Despite admonitions from spooked locals and a scarred and cloudy-eyed crewman, the Demeter sets sail from Transylvania for London with four large crates emblazoned with dragons. Captain Eliot (Liam Cunningham) hires Clemens (Corey Hawkins), a Black doctor with seafaring skills, to join the varied crew of alternately brooding, randy, cynical and pious men, as well as young Toby (Woody Norman) and his dog Huckleberry. The ship is making good time and the crew is dreaming of early delivery bonuses when things start going sideways. Clemens finds a young woman named Anna (Aisling Franciosi) nearly dead among those mysterious boxes in the hold. But rather than risk their bonuses to make for land and treatment for the stowaway, captain and crew sail on, even after the livestock on board are slaughtered overnight. Revived by blood transfusions from Clemens, Anna tries to warn the others of the monster (Javier Botet) aboard the ship, but it has already begun picking them off, sailor by sailor, as they draw nearer to London.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter is utterly immersive in its cinematography (Roman Osin and Tom Stern) and sound. Below deck, lanterns swing and cast shadows against the ropes and wooden corridors. Topside, rain and ocean douse the deck as men warily make their rounds at night, and thick mist curls up the sides of the ship as they hunt the creature. And everywhere, there is the sound of creaking wood and water, the crew’s double-knock signals echoing like a heartbeat through the ship. Much of the film is dark but you can actually see what’s happening, which is a lovely surprise given the flat blackness so often engulfing the screen in both action and horror movies.
The effects blend into the textures of the sets instead of going full horror spectacle, and they’re scarier for it. This Dracula crawls like an insect before smashing heads with knotty claws or tearing necks open — not with a pair of elegant fangs, but with rows of curved spikes more suited to an angler fish’s maw. Those damned to sail the Demeter have no lore to lean on, either, and no Dr. Van Helsing to guide them in choosing weapons that might do more good than a gun or knife. (Watching a sailor toss aside a jagged wooden stake is particularly stressful.)
Voiceover narration can seem a cheat but Cunningham’s rolling voice is an exception as he delivers wild understatements (“a strange injury”) entered in the log. The striking and understated Hawkins does much with his role as a disappointed man who hasn’t fallen into cynicism — a solid profile for a hero. Listening to him argue for life over money and science over denial, division and panic struck new chords after watching a failed pandemic response up close. As Anna, Franciosi has more to work with than the usual female victim or bride of Dracula, roles typically performed with a lot of hissing and writhing in gossamer nightgowns. Anna speaks about her ordeal as a woman who has endured violence, not seduction, with a keen sense of how it altered her, and she emerges as a credible badass.
There are no candelabras, no castles and no swaths of velvet in the Demeter’s portion of Dracula’s story. Instead of romance, charm and swooning victims, there is quick and ugly animal violence and cunning. (Though the sequel that’s gestured at in a departure from the original text would call for a shift away from this approach.) And for all the focus on the often unseen monster, it’s the humans onscreen who spike our fear as they move tentatively and desperately through the dark belly of the ship. There, all our vulnerabilities are on display: our mutual bonds, our grief and our tiny figures in the middle of a sea we cannot know. R. 119M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 320, or jennifer@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Instagram @JFumikoCahill and on Mastodon @jenniferfumikocahill.
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Fortuna Theatre is temporarily closed due to earthquake damage. For showtimes call: Broadway Cinema (707) 443-3456; Mill Creek Cinema 839-3456; Minor Theatre (707) 822-3456.
This article appears in Elk Crossing.
