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What is The Last Voyage of the Demeter about?
The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a horror film that explores themes related to duty, faith, and responsibility. Classic talking points but presented through the frame of Dracula on a boat. We have a number of scenes that show characters praying for God to help them only for Dracula to then hurt them. We also see how the duty Clemens feels as a doctor transfers to his dedication to hunting down this monster. Especially since Dracula’s bite is characterized as an infection. You can view the vampire then as a metaphor for sickness. Whether that’s as a literal disease, infection, or virus, or something far more existential like the darkness in the souls of humanity. These details mean that at its core Last Voyage of the Demeter is a classic story of good vs. evil, or the nobler aspects of the human condition that constantly battle the baser, viler aspects of our nature.
Movie Guide table of contents
Cast
- Clemens – Corey Hawkins
- Anna – Aisling Franciosi
- Dracula – Javier Botet
- Captain Elliot – Liam Cunningham
- Toby – Woody Norman
- Wojchek – David Dastmalchian
- Olgaren – Stefan Kapičić
- Joseph – Jon Jon Briones
- Larsen – Martin Furulund
- Abrams – Chris Walley
- Petrofsky – Nikolai Nikolaeff
- Written by – Bragi Schut Jr. | Zak Olkewicz
- Directed by – André Øvredal
- Based on – Dracula by Bram Stoker
The ending of The Last Voyage of the Demeter explained
Recap
The ending of The Last Voyage of the Demeter begins with a doomed plot to prevent Dracula from reaching England. The Demeter crew decides they will trap Dracula, sink the ship, then escape on a lifeboat. Except Dracula avoids their trap, slaughters most of the remaining crew, bites Anna, then is about to drink the blood of Clemens. Luckily for our hero, Anna frees a beam that swings down and pins Dracula to the mast. Wojchek had sprung a leak, meaning the ship was in the midst of sinking. Anna and Clemens make like Jack and Rose from Titanic and end up in the water, clinging to debris.
Unfortunately, the tidal surges from a huge storm cause The Demeter to crash onto the coastline rather than submerging to oblivion. Dracula frees himself and escapes. The next morning, Anna has the milky, white eyes of someone infected by Dracula’s bite. She says goodbye to Clemens then floats away on a piece of wreckage, burning alive with the sunrise.
We pick up later with Clemens in London, hanging out in a tavern at night. He’s rightfully angry and gives a speech about dedicating the rest of his life to hunting Dracula. Except Dracula is also there, in the tavern. More humanoid than purely bat as he was on The Demeter. Dracula notices Clemens, smiles, then ghosts away. Clemens gives chase, only to witness Dracula vanish down the street.
Meaning
On the literal level, the ending is pretty straight forward.
Dracula has reached England, despite the effort from the crew of The Demeter. It seems he had been readying for this move and probably had supplies sent ahead to London, to the location Clemens saw on the shipment order. We know from Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, that the creature ends up portraying himself as a wealthy nobleman with homes in various places—Carfax, Piccadilly, Whitby. Given that the movie adapts a section of the novel, it makes sense that the film’s plot would arrive at a similar situation.
For fans of the novel, there’s also the excitement around Clemens meeting up with figures from the book like Jonathan Harker and Van Helsing. Or even the notion that Clemens will become Van Helsing.
Thematically, there’s a bit more going on.
The glass half full view
Given that Clemens is a doctor and Dracula’s bite causes infection, Dracula can be viewed, in this film, as a representation for sickness. As he goes around and bites people, feeds on people, he spreads the infection. Multiple times in the movie, characters talk about how awful it will be for all of London, all of England, if Dracula reaches the country. Clemens then isn’t just a doctor but comes to represent all healthcare workers who fight against illness. But you can broaden that definition to reflect the conflict of good vs. evil. And Clemens representing anyone who sees evil in the world and wants to do something about it.
In some ways, Last Voyage is a bit of a coming-of-age story. Clemens isn’t your typical youthful protagonist or young adult, but he is someone who has been stuck at the starting line of his life, withering on the vine, waiting for something to happen. His encounter with Dracula is a life changing event that robs him of his innocence but leaves him with a determination he had previously lacked. In real life, people don’t encounter Dracula on a boat. But tragedies befall us. We lose someone close to us. Or suffer a health crisis. Or find ourselves existentially adrift. And as painful as these situations are, they can also be the very thing that ignites in us renewed vision of who we are, who we want to be, and what we’ll do with our lives moving forward.
Demeter couldn’t end with Clemens defeating Dracula as it would be a pretty egregious change from the source material. While the lack of closure might bother some, and can even be argued as an anti-climactic, cliche way to conclude a story—there’s something to be said about Demeter’s end as a kind of mythologization. The hero will pursue the villain. The doctor will fight sickness. It becomes the origin story of dedication and determination. And that’s applicable for all of us. You don’t have to battle terrific evil. But you also don’t have to be wayward. Pick your Dracula. Then pursue it. Maybe that’s something semi-ambitious like local politics. Or just a personal challenge like writing a novel. It could be a way to view your job—the Dracula that is bad IT solutions. Or maybe it’s just providing all you can for your family, and keeping that front of mind, each day. Or go big—become a Supreme Court Justice, or create a non-profit to combat homelessness, or become a famous musician so you can give back to people in your hometown.
That’s the inspiring way to view the end of The Last Voyage of the Demeter.
The glass half empty view
There’s also an argument about obsession and duty.
Clemens could have a normal life. But he now feels compelled to pursue this supernatural creature that is far stronger than him. He’s forever changed by his one month aboard The Demeter. It’s not something he can let go of or more on from. He’s haunted. Mentally and physically. We see this when Dracula, in the tavern, seems to stroke the scar on Clemens’s neck, a scar Dracula put there. Poetically speaking, scars are often used as a way to physically represent the impact of an event or period of time. Like Harry Potter’s scar is a reminder of Voldemort’s attempt to Avada Kedavra curse little baby Harry. That lightning bolt embodies not only the history between Harry and He Shall Not Be Named but the destiny that awaits them.
So even though Clemens looks almost the same as he did before boarding The Demeter, we know the voyage changed him. He’s now a man obsessed. And the scar represents what happened on the ship to make him so fanatical.
There’s something to be said about how even if what he’s doing—trying to eradicate Dracula—is for the greater good, he can still be going about it in a way that’s unhealthy and the byproduct of trauma. Through this lens, Clemens isn’t necessarily a hero but a survivor with unprocessed damage who can’t move beyond the events that continue to torment them. That would render him a far more tragic figure. He avoided the physical infection, but not the poisoning of his soul.
The themes and meaning of The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Faith
Joseph, the cook, and Captain Elliot both have moments that show how religious they are. Especially Joseph. To him, Dracula’s presence becomes a punishment from God for the sins committed aboard the ship. He believes that the Bible and prayer may save him. But then knocks out his friend in order to steal the lifeboat. It seems he might get away—until Dracula reveals his bat like wings and flies over and eats Joseph.
Toby also prays before Dracula feeds on him.
Then the Captain, roped to the helm, also prays right before Dracula bites him.
Every character who wants to rely on God ends up a victim.
One of the classic vampire tropes is that a crucifix causes vampires to stay back. Usually because it amplifies someone’s prayer/faith. Except Dracula in the The Last Voyage does not even balk.
The horror genre has always had a very interesting relationship with religion. It’s not always presented in the best light but it’s also not always negative. The Exorcist, The Witch, Rosemary’s Baby, Constantine, The Wailing. But then there are definitely entries that take a far more critical and chastising view of religion: Carrie, Hellraiser, Saint Maud.
Last Voyage of the Demeter makes a point to show that faith does nothing for the characters in this movie.
In fact, the main character, Clemens, is a doctor, who presents a desire to understand the world based on fact and experience. At first, he rejects the notion that Dracula is some supernatural being. Much less a divine punishment. He’s the one who classifies the bite as an infection of the blood and is able to, in some cases, use a blood transfusion to treat the way he would any other infection.
While Clemens never straight up says he is a non-believer, it seems implied. Even if he did have some small amount of faith, the experience with Dracula would rob him of it. Women, children, elderly—no one survived. The monster succeeded and now is able to feed on a much larger populace. That would shake anyone’s belief. Especially with Toby going out in a burst of flames the way he did. Children often represent innocence and purity. So for the child to not only not survive but to go out as brutally as he did—that is a pretty big statement.
Duty
Duty is an important component of The Last Voyage of the Demeter.
Clemens is a doctor who has a duty to the sick and to combat illness.
Captain Elliot has a duty to the crew and the ship. He’s also a grandfather who feels a responsibility for his grandson, Toby.
Then Anna is from a village that had essentially been enslaved by Dracula for generations. It was her fellow villagers who transported the cargo to the ship on Dracula’s behalf. It was her fellow villagers who gave her to Dracula to feed on during the voyage.
Toby talks about the duty he has in watching over livestock. We even see how upset he is after Dracula feeds on the livestock. Clemens tries to console him over the animas but Toby clarifies he’s upset because they were his responsibility and he let the captain, his grandfather, down.
Then a ship only sails if the crew does their duties, pulls their weight.
Faith and duty often go hand in hand. Luke 17:7-10 addresses duty specifically. “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”
So to have this demonic, devilish figure, who was, to Anna’s village, a kind of God, terrorize a ship that’s mostly full of Christian believers, challenging their faith, stopping them from their duties—it continues to develop Last Voyage of the Demeter’s criticisms of religion.
And that brings us back to Clemens being a man of science. Science is often artistically used as foil for religion. It’s a trope for the scientist to be a non-believer. So if a physicist and a priest are friends they could be viewed as a bit of an odd couple. In Last Voyage, Clemens is the scientist, the questioner, who is looking for answers. He says at one point that there’s “so much goodness” in the world “yet…”. And the implication of the conjunction is there’s also so much bad.
So how does one maintain faith and duty after encountering something so horrendous? If the crew’s religious beliefs had saved them, had helped them to defeat Dracula or at least survive, then you can imagine Clemens joining them. He would be a convert. Instead, the experience reinforces the duty he feels as a doctor. Someone who fights sickness. Even if that sickness is in the form of a demonic bat-man.
Why is the movie called The Last Voyage of the Demeter?
The entire movie comes from a passage from the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. It’s part of Chapter 7. There’s a newspaper clipping about a storm and the drama of a ship that crashed to shore. The authorities found the body of a man who had strapped himself to the wheel. In his possession, a log and a bottle with an addendum to the log.
A follow up entry provides more details. “It turns out that the schooner is Russian from Varna, and is called the Demeter. She is almost entirely in ballast of silver sand, with only a small amount of cargo, a number of great wooden boxes filled with mould.”
After that, we get the LOG OF THE DEMETER. It’s a bunch of short, short entries. For example, “On 13 July passed Cape Matapan. Crew dissatisfied about something. Seemed scared, but would not speak out.” That’s it.
Another: 24 July. —There seems some doom over this ship. Already a hand short, and entering the Bay of Biscay with wild weather ahead, and yet last night another man lost, disappeared. Like the first, he came off his watch and was not seen again. Men all in a panic of fear, sent a round robin, asking to have double watch, as they fear to be alone. Mate angry. Fear there will be some trouble, as either he or the men will do some violence.
Near the end are a couple longer entries that only just vaguely hint at a monster on board and are a bit more literary.
In total, it’s just a few pages of the entire novel. But they’re striking as a short story, a micro-narrative in the midst of the whole, something that helps set the stage for the horror that will follow.
So having Demeter in the title is a nod to the novel Dracula without giving the whole thing away for people who aren’t familiar with the story. Then The Last Voyage is an important adjective phrase, as it gives people a sense of tone and genre. If it was just Demeter, that’s bland and doesn’t tell anyone much. If it was Romance Aboard the Demeter, that promises a different kind of story than something like Storm the Deck of the Demeter, which feels more action focused. The Last Voyage captures a sense of doom. You know tragedy will unfold. And for a horror film, that’s the exact kind of narrative promise that will interest the target audience.
What about the word Demeter? Where does that come from?
Greek mythology! Demeter is, according to Wikipedia, the “goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over crops, grains, food, and the fertility of the earth. Although she is mostly known as a grain goddess, she also appeared as a goddess of health, birth, and marriage, and had connections to the Underworld.”
It gets weird, as most Greek myths do. Demeter had a daughter, Persephone. Hades, god who ran the Underworld, stole Persephone and married her. Demeter got extremely sad and stopped doing harvest stuff, meaning nothing grew. That caused a famine that resulted in a lot of mortals starving to death. Things happen and Persephone ends up having to split time between hanging out with her mom on Olympus and being Queen of the Underworld with Hades. Apparently this was the explanation for seasonal cycles and why crops only grew in one part of the year. “Demeter does not let plants grow while Persephone is gone.”
It also notes that Demeter oversaw “the cycle of life and death”.
You can form a number of theories based on this. Probably the most obvious is the one that leans into the idea of the cycle of life and death, arguing that Dracula is an agent of death. Or by crashing the ship embodying Demeter, it’s like plunging the world into the same dire state as when Demeter was too sad to control the harvest. Except instead of starvation, you have a vampire.
There’s also something to the idea that harvest and agriculture are important to keeping people fed. And Dracula is a being that feeds on people. London would be quite the harvest for him. That would give a duality to the Demter reference. Even making it a bit ironic.
Important motifs in The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Prayer and Christian iconography
Lots of characters aboard The Demeter pray. We see a Bible. We see crosses and crucifixes. These things are important components to building up the film’s commentary on religion. And differ a bit from how they’re used in the book.
For example, the Captain survives Dracula, but not the raging seas, because, in his own words: I shall baffle this fiend or monster, for I shall tie my hands to the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and along with them I shall tie that which He, It, dare not touch. And then, come good wind or foul, I shall save my soul, and my honour as a captain… God and the Blessed Virgin and the Saint help a poor ignorant soul trying to do his duty…”
The “that which He, It, dare not touch”is a cross. It’s noted earlier in the newspaper article about the crash that “The man was simply fastened by his hands, tied one over the other, to a spoke of the wheel. Between the inner hand and the wood was a crucifix, the set of beads on which it was fastened being around both wrists and wheel, and all kept fast by the binding cords.” So in the novel, the Christian iconography works. The captain saves his soul.
Yet in the movie, it does not. Which is a very big statement.
Questions & answers about The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Is The Last Voyage of the Demeter based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula?
Yes. The novel, not the movie Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Why did the crew attack Dracula at night? Why didn’t they do it during the day?
I wish there was a good answer here. It’s just extremely bad writing. Especially because, the night before, Clemens and Anna found where Dracula sleeps. So they knew he slept in the one crate in the cargo hold. Meaning that they could have gone down there and set the crate on fire. Or used some ropes to lift the crate to the deck then remove the top so the sun hit Dracula. Remember, they all knew at this point that anyone infected by the monster would burn in the sunlight. And that Dracula only came out at night. It seems a pretty safe assumption then that the same would happen to Dracula. At the very least, they’d have the upper hand.
But for completely inexplicable reasons, they decide the best course of action is to wait for Dracula to wake up, go to the deck, then try and trap him? It’s ludicrous.
One way around this would have been if you simply have the lifeboat never return to The Demeter. They already had Joseph steal it and row away. From there, you just write that it’s gone. They didn’t do that though. Instead, the filmmakers had the lifeboat return to the ship, just so the characters could know Dracula got Joseph. After that, they get the lifeboat back on the ship and ready to use.
Because the lifeboat is there, it makes attacking Dracula at night ridiculous. They could spring a leak, light the ship on fire, then leave in the raft. All during the day, when Dracula couldn’t escape. If the lifeboat wasn’t there, then they’d have no way off the ship. Meaning they’d have to stand their ground at some point. Day or night.
Even then, you still do it during the day.
Did Clemens and Anna tell anyone they know where Dracula slept?
Doesn’t seem like it. If they did, no one knew what to do with that information. They could have just put the rest of the dirt filled crates on top of Dracula’s crate. How could he ever get out of that? Maybe he breaks all the wood? But when you hear that happening you set the whole pile of crates on fire.
Is all of that a plot hole?
No. It’s what we call a logic gap. A plot hole is something that’s absolutely impossible or rule breaking. Like if a character in a realistic, grounded movie was in New York City at noon and somehow in Los Angeles an hour later. StudioBinder has a great example. “Say your protagonist has an allergic reaction to peanuts and then later eats peanuts with no reaction—that’s a plot hole.” Sometimes these are harmless. Like the peanut allergy thing probably doesn’t change or ruin the story. Other times, they can completely spoil someone’s suspension of disbelief and immersion in the story.
Then you have logic gaps. Logic gaps aren’t necessarily rule breaking. They’re just unexplained by what happens in the movie. One famous one is in The Dark Knight Rises. Bane breaks Bruce Wayne’s bank account and his back. Then his goons take Bruce to a prison on an entirely different continent than North America. When Bruce finally escapes the prison, he has no money, seemingly no way to contact his partner, Alfred, and no way home. Cut to later! Bruce is back! And ready to continue on as Batman and save Gotham from Bane. How did he get back? Never explained. Never even given a line of throwaway dialogue. Christopher Nolan avoids addressing entirely.
That’s not a plot hole. It’s a logic gap. You can assume that because Bruce is Batman and resourceful that he has some contacts or some safehouses or some means of getting his life together and returning to Gotham. We don’t know how he does it. But it’s entirely possible that he does. In Batman Begins, he traveled the world without resources. He can do it again, right?
But just because we can come up with an explanation doesn’t mean it feels good or is satisfying or isn’t annoying.
Last Voyage of the Demeter doesn’t necessarily have a glaring plot hole so much as a dozen razor sharp logic gaps.
When and how did Anna get bit again?
There’s that moment Dracula flies by and pins her against a wall. We see her pushed up against the membrane of his wing, almost as if he was going to suffocate her. Apparently, in that moment, he bites.
Why didn’t the blood transfusion work on anyone else? Why only Anna?
Because Dracula was using Anna as a Lunchable, he had to keep her alive. So even though he bit her a lot of times, it was never severe enough. That means there was less of an infection, which meant the blood transfusion could actually work. For Olgaren, the bite was deep and lethal on its own. Toby maybe could have survived the bite, but he was so much smaller than Anna that the infection would spread faster than the transfusion could help.
How did Dracula look in the book?
In the book we get:
Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere….
His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth. These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed. The chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm and thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.
Is Clemens going to be Van Helsing?
It seems possible? Van Helsing in the original book knew a lot about diseases and was an older, smart man, who helps a character bitten by Dracula. His knowledge of obscura comes in handy as he recognizes the signs of a vampire bite.
Over time, Van Helsing has become more of a “vampire hunter” figure. And Clemens does declare at the end that he plans to do whatever he needs to, no matter how long it takes, to destroy Dracula. Exactly what you’d expect from a vampire hunter. And they also set up Clemens as someone who wants to learn about all sorts of things, no matter how obscure.
So the pieces are there. But in the original book, Van Helsing is a professor from Germany who now resides and teaches in London. So Clemens becoming Van Helsing, or using the name, would be a big switch. But that’s more than okay. Not every adaptation of Dracula is faithful to Dracula. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Now it’s your turn
Have more unanswered questions about The Last Voyage of the Demeter? Are there themes or motifs we missed? Is there more to explain about the ending? Please post your questions and thoughts in the comments section! We’ll do our best to address every one of them. If we like what you have to say, you could become part of our movie guide!
