Film Review - Dracula: Voyage of the Demeter
Images courtesy of StudioCanal.
Since his inception in Bram Stoker's seminal novel, Dracula has been an integral part of popular culture. From 1922's unofficial adaptation Nosferatu, to Béla Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Gary Oldman taking on the mantle in the 30s, 50s and 90s respectively, to Sesame Street's The Count, and then Dracula 3000 jumping way past the shark and straight into orbit, he's certainly had a fair run of it. Yet, there's one small part of the story that's gone by relatively uncharted for over a hundred years - the seventh chapter, The Captain's Log - an injustice that Dracula: Voyage of the Demeter (also known by the much better title of The Last Voyage of the Demeter in the US) hopes to correct.
Directed by Andre Øvredal (Troll Hunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe), the film follows the story of a ship harbouring a cursed consignment - none other than the Big D himself (here played by the imposing Javier Botet). The doomed crewmates are backed by a well-rounded cast, featuring a surprisingly good performance from Corey Hawkins as our protagonist, Clemens, and an unfortunately wasted David Dastmalchian (though I'm sure he's doing just fine considering how many other films he's been popping up in lately). There's also other characters such as Child, Woman, and Chef, all of whom have about as much personality as a doorknob. That hollowness extends to pretty much all of the characters, even Dracula himself.
Despite the impressive look and presence of the creature, I found the staging of the horror setpieces underwhelming, lacking in tension or impact. It's commendable to strip the bloodsucker of all of his usual human traits and just have him be this voracious, animalistic ghoul, but then when it comes to the killing, the film drops the ball and seems quite uninspired in how it shows us the violence. Demeter dispatches characters in a way that would be considered sacrilege by most contemporary horror films’ standards, but it lacks the chutzpah or emotional stakes (get it, stakes) to pull it off in a way that feels effective. Compared to Øvredal's previous work, it lacks personality, and for the most part, it just feels like we're going through the motions.
For all the film lacks in gut punches, it makes up for with some pretty solid period-appropriate production design. The world feels decently lived in, at least enough to pass the bar set by much more dramatically effective films. "Alien but on the high seven seas" is a great pitch, in theory, but Voyage of the Demeter's real problem is that the audience already knows where the map leads, and the film does little in its way to add any bite.
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Dracula: Voyage of the Demeter is screening from Thursday 10th August. For tickets and more info, click here.