The Last Voyage of the Demeter, directed by André Øvredal (Troll Hunter) from a script by Bragi F. Schut (Samaritan) and Zak Olkewicz (Bullet Train), takes one chapter from Bram Stoker's Dracula and attempts to resurrect a feature-length movie from it. Despite their best efforts, the script is thin-blooded, and ultimately cannot decide what it wants to be.
The Demeter is bound for London, England, from Varna, Bulgaria, with a huge and valuable cargo. However, before it goes, Captain Eliot (Liam Cummingham) needs to hire three hands. Clemens (Corey Hawkins), a Londonite who wants to return home, applies for the job and is rejected. After a near-fatal accident which Clemens prevented and abandonment by a crew member, Eliot relents and adds him to the crew. After they set sail on the long journey a stowaway is discovered in the hold, and what first seemed like a blessing for Clemens soon becomes a curse, as the animals, and ultimately the crew, begin to die in horrible, gruesome ways. Now, the Demeter is in a race against time to make it to London before everyone on board is killed.
Chapter 7 of Dracula contains the source material for this script, but it consists of less than 2,000 words. Schut and Olkewicz had an enormous task to pull two hours from such a short piece, and it shows. The concept is good, and the expansion and addition of characters and their backstories make sense. Still, it never coalesces into something wholly entertaining. Much of this is because the film never manages to decide if it is a creeping horror, a moralistic story, or a simple jump scare. This creates a situation where the film is dull and slow in the moments between these elements. Øvredal does his best and manages to pull some fine performances from the actors, especially Cunningham and David Dastmalchian (as the first mate Wojchek), but the script never gives any of them enough to truly shine. The story entertains but has too many flaws - especially in how the characters would have reacted in real life - to engage genuinely.
The sets, on the other hand, are fantastic. The dirty streets and bars of Varna at the beginning of the film promise some gripping storytelling. Once everyone is on the ship, the claustrophobic feeling of narrow spaces and old, rat-infested wood binds this promise. This exceptional attention to detail only adds to the disappointment when it becomes apparent that they're just trappings on an otherwise plain tale. Even the prosthetics for Dracula in close-up shots, which should be terrifying, are underwhelming by the time the audience finally gets a good glimpse. There's too much time spent trying to find balance between building suspense and showing gore, so the climactic reveal doesn't have the impact it should.
The scriptwriters are exceptionally skilled, and the director is known for his horror chops. Still, something didn't click between them, and like the slow movement of a shambling ghoul, it shows in The Last Voyage of the Demeter. When expanding on such a culturally impactful novel, there should be more meat than just the ill-fated crew. Instead, audiences are treated to something that has a little life to it but ends up dead on arrival.