Written by Andreas Babiolakis

If you are familiar with the story of Dracula, there is one minuscule portion of the story where Count Dracula kills off crew mates of the Demeter ship one by one; it is depicted in the chapter, “The Captain’s Log.” Well, someone thought it was a good idea to take this chapter — which serves a significant purpose in a larger story — and turn it into an Alien ripoff named The Last Voyage of the Demeter. Directed by horror filmmaker André Øvredal, whose track record hasn’t been my favourite so far (here’s an example), The Last Voyage of the Demeter is easily his worst film yet. It got on my last nerve twenty minutes in, and it proceeded to try and find meaning in nothingness for the remainder of its duration. I can see why a chapter in a novel where people die individually and the rest of the crew members slowly go insane as to why could seem like an interesting idea for a film. The main thing is that “The Captain’s Log” was meant to build up the milieu of Count Dracula and what he is capable of by himself. It is meant to be shrouded in mysteriousness (provided by the third-party narrator's account of the deaths), and force readers into worrying about what comes next with this missing information.

Well, The Last Voyage of the Demeter reduces a chapter that serves as a plot device into a lifeless horror film that aspires to be a slasher film that doesn’t work. It definitely isn’t a whodunnit, because we already fucking know who done it: that’s part of the reason why people would even want to watch this in the first place. Yes, it is simply a slasher film, but one that is more like a film bro’s first attempt with his friends straight out of film school. The deaths are limited, obvious, and a chore (when they’re meant to be the main event for the horror fans that prioritize bullshit over proper storytelling, anyway). The characters are boiled down to being chickens with their heads cut off, running around and wasting the highly capable star power of the likes of Corey Hawkins, Liam Cunningham, and more. As we are trapped on this ship with these clueless people (again, missing the actual power of Dracula by blaming the passengers for being inept as opposed to making Dracula seem authentically unstoppable), The Last Voyage of the Demeter becomes unbearable. It neglects what makes Alien work: the fact that we are trapped with competent people and they are still being picked off, and there seems to be nothing that could stop their deaths. If I was going to die, I’d rather be with the Alien crew than The Last Voyage of These Dumbasses.

Jeez, somebody forgot to brush their teeth today. Although I wouldn’t say that this dude has garlic breath for obvious reasons.

Dracula himself is turned from a force to be reckoned with into a Gollum nightmare while one is fucked up on ayahuasca (not faulting the makeup department who do a great job with what they’re tasked, but rather whoever’s idea it was to make a reject Magic the Gathering goblin than an actual being that embodies Dracula’s essence). It almost feels comedic whenever he shows up, like that nimrod friend of yours who only shows up whenever shit hits the fan (and he always needs a favour from you… Can never call just to say “hi”). This should feel like a serious film when you’re watching people around you falling into the traps, hysteria, and fatality of these circumstances, but it instead feels like a high school play with millionaire-tycoon-daddy’s money to try and have the best project of the class. Money cannot solve ineptitude. However, it can give you some captivating sets and costumes (I’ll apologize to the makeup department again by admitting that the work here is good, all things considered: the design just seems questionable, but the execution is great). These elements, and these elements alone, kept me invested in the film because I felt like I was in a real place; it just felt like a stupid one.

I don’t understand how it made sense to take a chapter out of an entire story, balloon it to feature film stature, and expect it to work. It’s like if I extrapolated the book-within-a-book titled The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, turned it into a feature film, and expected audiences to even care. This “book” serves the purpose of making the world Orwell created fuller (including the details of the global war within Nineteen Eighty-Four), as well as legitimizing how Oceania got to the state that it is in. Although “The Captain’s Log” has a bit more validity to it being removed and acknowledged as its own story because of its contained characters and circumstances, it still doesn’t work. Count Dracula is no longer a villain whose capabilities feel limitless. He’s now a creature stowaway that is a pain in the ass to travel with. The chapter leaves most of the characters relatively vague (save for protagonist Dr. John Seward, who I guess is changed to Dr. Clemens in this film) because Dracula’s kill streak becomes a statistical element, showcasing how deadly he is in the novel. Even so, the novel’s characters feel like they exist more than the cutouts left to fold in The Last Voyage of the Demeter. Storytellers who make slasher films just to see characters die throughout the feature have no idea how this genre is meant to work. Then again, The Last Voyage of the Demeter doesn’t even understand how its source material functions either. It’s a failure on both fronts to the point that the most heinous kill happened right as soon as the film started and up to its conclusion: my precious time.

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.