For a Catholic film reviewer like me, when there is basically nothing else playing in the cinema and you have seen as much advertising for something as for The Last Voyage of the Demeter, you opt for horror.  It is usually my last choice.  I could have gone for Jules.  I viewed its trailer, and it seems like a heartwarming tale, certainly more to my liking, anyway.  Raise your hand if you have heard of this title.  Now put your hand down because you are probably lying.  Also, if you are in public, you might be attracting unwanted attention.  Still, this does not typically stop me from watching something if I feel so inclined.  Thus, the clincher was the historic setting.  Thus, I hoped for two things in The Last Voyage of the Demeter: an accurate portrayal of the past and some evidence of good triumphing over evil.  This is something seldom put into this genre these days, hence why I avoid them.  Read on to find out whether today’s film met those standards.

It is literally The Last Voyage of the Demeter, an older sailing schooner that washes up on the shore of England at the film’s outset.  The local constabulary is the first to investigate the wreck.  Among the carnage they discover the log of Captain Elliot (Liam Cunningham).  His recording of the events that transpire between Varana, Bulgaria, and where it comes to rest in the British Isles forms the basis of the rest of the film.  Coming to the port some four weeks earlier is a mysterious set of oblong wooden crates with a dragon emblazoned on them.  Guess what they contain.  I will tell you in a moment, anyway.  In the meantime, Captain Elliot is looking for a few more hands to fill out the crew for the return to London.  Among those hoping to get a spot is Clemens (Corey Hawkins), a Cambridge educated doctor.  Why would a person of such training be seeking to work as a common sailor?  Because he is of African extract, and thus not sought after despite his skills.  He is about to be denied berth on the Demeter, too, if not for two events.  The person chosen in his place lets go of a rope holding one of the strange containers, which almost lands Captain Elliot’s nephew, Toby (Woody Norman).  This would have killed the boy had it not been for Clemens’ intervention.  The negligent deckhand is immediately dismissed, though he is happy to go when he sees the cargo, and Clemens comes aboard.  Soon thereafter, they put to sea, bound for England.  Okay, from here it is a boring loop of the sun going down and the crew being terrorized by Dracula (Javier Botet).  And, yes, I do mean Dracula because the basis of this film is a chapter from Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula (1897).  It is dark, dreary, and bloody.  Hence, I am going to spare you some of the details in order to avoid repetition.  It is also frustrating for us dog lovers as the ship’s beloved pooch Huck is the legendary vampire’s first victim.  The poor thing is part of the initial round of deaths, this pertaining to the livestock meant to feed the crew en route.  Given his medical knowledge, Clemens is called upon to examine the animals.  He concludes that they have been fed upon by something.  While strange, he dismisses it as being the work of one of the other animals gone mad.  This is only the beginning of the odd happenings.  Another discovery he makes is that of a woman, Anna (Aisling Franciosi).  The rest of the crew, being experienced sailors, immediately blame her for what they are beginning to believe to be the evil besetting them.  This is an old superstition, that women on a boat is bad luck.  She also appears to be afflicted in some way.  At Clemens’ insistence, Captain Elliot allows the physician to treat what he thinks is an infection, giving her regular blood transfusions.  It is really after this that people start dying.  Those who do not immediately die, like Olgaren (Stefan Kapicic), are turned into some kind of monster.  I guess you can call them vampires, though they do not seem to have the trademark teeth.  They do possess the familiar sensitivity to sunlight, which we are shown when Olgaren is tied to one of the masts as the sun rises.  Him burning up is what finally convinces Clemens that there might be something going on that has yet to be explained by science.  Luckily, they have Anna.  She had been smuggled aboard as, I suppose, a snack for Dracula, though the original blood sucker seems to forget about her when there are plenty of other opportunities.  This includes Toby, the attack upon whom devastates Captain Elliot.  There is nothing like seeing a close relative go up in a blaze before your eyes.  It is at this point that those surviving decide to set a trap for Dracula.  The idea is to encage Dracula on the Demeter, point it away from England out to the middle of the ocean, and sink it.  Yet, they leave Anna on the deck as bait with a hatch open, pointing guns down at her and waiting for the monster to emerge.  What can go wrong?  Well, of course, everything does and it becomes a desperate fight for Clemens against a seemingly invisible beast who, by the way, can also fly.  When it seems like Clemens is about to be the latest unwilling blood donor, Anna unleashes a piece of the rigging that pins Dracula in place.  Anna and Clemens then jump overboard and find a bit of flotsam to which to cling.  In the morning, Anna finally succumbs to the vampire bug and goes up in flames, though somehow with her wits about her.  We close with Clemens in a London pub trying to figure out how to kill Dracula.

Again, The Last Voyage of the Demeter is based on Bram Stoker’s classic story Dracula, the originator for most of what society accepts about vampires.  That said, there is not a lot that makes sense in the film.  Do Anna, Olgaren, and Toby become vampires?  If only based on what ultimately finishes them off, then yes.  Yet, there is nothing consistent about their process.  Olgaren immediately goes into a frenzy, though appears to settle down when they strap him to the mast.  Toby looks like he is dead, but then reanimates just before he is tossed overboard.  With Captain Elliot believing Toby to be alive, the uncle tears through the canvas shroud only to have his nephew open his eyes and instantly attack.  The boy might have succeeded too had he not been on fire.  As for Anna, after a few hours adrift, right before dawn, suddenly she is a creature of the night.  I expected her to try to kill Clemens.  Instead, she calmly explains that she knew this to be her fate for some time and then pushes away from him to have her fiery end.  Why did the others not have the same lucidity? Please do not “at me,” as the kids might say, by citing the source material.  I am guessing there are a few liberties taken anyway.  My answer to that would be Clemens.  He is the only levelheaded person throughout, testing out hypotheses as to why these things are happening in his quest to understand the world.  You would think that, through his investigations, some explanation would have been given.  Nope!

Speaking of Clemens, he is also the only one in The Last Voyage of the Demeter who is not prone to superstition.  Even Captain Elliot, who is initially dismissive of their wild theories, comes to believe that the ship is cursed.  Such beliefs have no basis in Christianity because they contradict God’s power.  This may seem counterintuitive because there are those out there that feel that faith is nothing but superstition.  The thing about these misguided notions is that they appear to have rules.  For example, a woman on a ship is bad luck.  If there is a female aboard, then bad things happen.  God does not operate by such bounds.  He is stronger.  This brings me to a part of the film that I found particularly offensive from a Catholic perspective.  As Toby is being seized by Dracula, he holds a Crucifix attached to a Rosary directly up to the monster’s face.  It is meant to be a sort of talisman to ward off evil.  It is, of course, much more than yet another piece of superstition, making its ineffectualness that much more frustrating.  Christianity, especially with the Bible quoting ship’s cook Joseph (Jon Jon Briones), is treated as the ravings of dangerous and desperate people.  Though Clemens comes to accept that there are some things beyond his precious science, it is his academic assessments that seem to be favored by the movie.  The thing about Dracula, though, is that he represents the wrong side of a spiritual battle between good and evil.  To be clear, vampires are not real.  However, there are those out there that would like them to be because of the false promises they hold out for those that worship them.  Fictional or not, there has to be a corresponding force to keep their excesses I check, and that is God.  Unfortunately, He seems to be largely missing from the proceedings.

The one thing I have yet to pay off from the introduction to this review of The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a discussion of the historical accuracy.  As these things go, it is okay.  What I would be more concerned about is how faithful it is to the source material, which, as I predicted, is pretty bad.  That is the thought upon which I will end my ramblings for the day.