The Captain and Crew of the Demeter, a large sailing vessel, are tasked with taking 40 odd crates from Eastern Europe to London, and are on a decent bonus if they can get the cargo to its destination in quick time. Naturally there is no such thing as a free lunch, and as the crew discovers the crates contain something they are not expecting. As the crew are picked off one by one tensions rise, especially when a female stowaway is discovered. The crew might pull themselves apart before whatever has taken residence on the boat gets around to doing that. Ever wondered how Dracula got himself to England, this movie expands on the beat Bram Stoker laid down in his classic horror novel. Let’s set sail and see how the movie travels.

Surprisingly I got an explicit feeling about this movie as the end credits rolled; if anything I decided that I watched an eighteenth century Alien! Come at me Bro, think it through before commenting. We get a working class crew, a vessel that is a long way from a safe port, and a monster that the crew can’t even understand little lone combat successfully. Add in a bonus situation, remember that being a plot point in Alien, and a single survivor left adrift as the movie ends. For sure if they had of had nukes back in the eighteenth century, the Demeter would have been vaporised. Need I go on? Stunning similarities yet deferent mythologies, I’m not saying Voyage of the Demeter is a direct copy, just that it reflects Alien in a ye oldie fashion.

To the movie itself, it sure is nice to look at. While the majority of the runtime is at sea, and that was well handled, the coastal locations are rocking and are period exact. I was also really enjoying the storms at sea, the night time scenes, and the use of claustrophobic settings below decks. If after a movie that will stun you with the visuals then you are in the right place, and that would be before we get to the vampire of the piece.

Backing up the visuals is the dialogue throughout the movie. While the dialogue sounds true to the period the movie is set in, modern audiences will have no problem following it. There’s some sub-text going down, but you can rock to that if you want or quite happily not bother about it. I was quite happy with the metaphysics in residence but wasn’t taken out of the movie while I contemplated the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Do we get any further understanding of the human condition through Voyage of the Demeter, not really, ideas are presented but to be honest not really followed through on.

For some viewers the pacing of the movie might be slightly on the slow side. Director André Øvredal takes his time setting things up, it’s at least ten minutes into the movie before the Demeter gets underway, and even while his monster is making itself know, the Director isn’t rushing things but carefully constructing the plot and setting the scene. Things do speed up in the final act, but we are not exactly off to the races, you are not going to be left wondering what is going down, Øvredal is almost pedantic in depicting what is going down.  

To the scare tactics in use, not entirely sure we are any further removed from Alien. We are talking that almost slasher style of picking off the cast one by one, but don’t have a final girl, (which is a bit of a joke considering the trope was wholly invented by an academic, who if she was Aussie would be representing us in breakdancing at the Olympics), discovering the bodies of the cast toward the end of the movie. Plenty of vampire stuff going down, with some quite gruesome throat mutilations from time to time, and the possibility of one or more of the crew being converted during the second act which plays towards a scene in the final act, which is in no way related to a similar scene in 30 Days of Night. Don’t expect any huge exploration of the vampire mythos, though not being able to travel over running water is kind of forgotten about in one scene, but we do get a decent visualisation of the creature once it is display in all its glory. Actually going to harken back to one of the final gal tropes for just a minute, the crew does discover their supply of farm animals have been slaughtered on mass at one stage, sort of think that was decent without being dwelt on overly. The scene is more an entrée to the main course than a fulfilling development in its own regard. For mine the scare tactics are right for the movie content, plenty of dark gloomy places with potential victims unable to make out in any detail their surrounds. Loved the long shoots into the gloom on the deck. We also get a preternatural mist floating in at one stage to thwart a plan the main dude has laid down. I should also add the Director has no issue adding the vessel dog and a small boy to the casualty list, always dangerous places to go for a horror flick.

There’s an elephant in this particular eighteenth century room that I have been kind of avoiding, as otherwise the movie is excellent. Our lead is a black dude, educated in medicine at one of the most prestigious English universities, who just happens to be looking for passage back to England as the position of court physician disappeared due to his skin colour. Okay this train of events is ludicrous given the time the movie was set in, and even more face palming was the heavy handed insertion of identity politics that goes down. I took a full mark off the score on this alone, sorry we’re in it for the vampers not the lecture, yes we also get some mild feminist insertion. An even worse cinematic sin is that the black dude survives the journey, frack me, and evidently is going to be intrinsically involved in taking down Dracula in later movies. I have no issues with movies like Blade when they cast a black guy in the lead role, and by heaven that’s a good movie, but period piece is period piece you can frack right off with your politics. 

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is almost the perfect vampire flick, but falls down when the makers decide to venture beyond the mythos as laid down in the original novel. I really think we are going to be sailing into shitty waters if there is a sequel, just saying. Enjoyed the visuals, enjoyed the almost Alien plot line, did not think the inserted politics were necessary and they we’re belaboured somewhat. I’m still going to recommend this movie on the visuals and story being told, which nicely fills in a gap in our Count Dracula plotline. If you are wanting to set out on a blood thirsty voyage then this movie might just be what you are after, unfortunately like Titanic we kind of know how things are going to end, so tension is subverted before we begin. Period take on Alien for mine, I’ll watch this sort of thing every day of the week and twice on Sundays.