{"id":258737,"date":"2025-07-12T10:56:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T10:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/258737\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T10:56:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T10:56:16","slug":"abrahams-boys-is-a-dracula-sequel-that-doubles-as-a-sunny-western","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/258737\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Abraham’s Boys’ Is a ‘Dracula’ Sequel That Doubles as a Sunny Western"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn \u201cAbraham\u2019s Boys: A Dracula<\/a> Story,\u201d writer-director Natasha Kermani made a small-scale family drama about a father raising his sons. It also happens to be a sequel to one of the most famous stories ever written.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film \u2014\u00a0which releases in select theaters on July 11 from RLJE Films and Shudder \u2014 follows iconic \u201cDracula\u201d foe Abraham Van Helsing (Titus Welliver) after he heads to the American West years after the events of that novel. While Van Helsing is a strict parent to his two sons, Max (Brady Hepner) and Rudy (Judah Mackey), they begin to wonder if he\u2019s losing his mind as he warns that Dracula\u2019s dark forces are resurfacing through his wife, Mina (Jocelin Donahue).<\/p>\n

\n\tKermani says she was fascinated by the Joe Hill short story of the same name that her feature is based on.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s this very simple story of a son and a father coming into collision with each other and their belief system,\u201d she says. \u201cTo me, that felt very elegant and like it would lend itself very elegantly to a feature film. Then, of course, there\u2019s the sandbox of Dracula. What filmmaker can resist that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne unique element is the film\u2019s use of the sun. While there are some frightening scenes in darkness, much of the film is bathed in light, which is not only a change from many horror stories, but also is much different than \u201cDracula,\u201d a tale drenched in darkness.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn terms of cinematography, there is something so oppressive about that unending sun,\u201d Kermani says. \u201cIt\u2019s that classic American Western \u2014 there is no escaping this daylight. Obviously, for a vampire film, that gets subversive and interesting because we associate daylight with safety. When you start to play with that, maybe the daytime is not as safe as you think it is. Who are the monsters? What\u2019s safe and what\u2019s not? That was all very exciting for us to present visually. It has these huge expansive environments that are just oppressive. The sky is coming at you nonstop with sunlight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn order to make these bold choices, it was essential to have a strong actor be the backbone of the project. Welliver brings plenty of gravitas to Van Helsing in a different gear than audiences might be used to seeing him.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn Joe\u2019s story, his way in for Abraham is not as a monster hunter, not as this legendary swashbuckling character, but as a very grounded man who\u2019s a father, a physician, a working man,\u201d Kermani says. \u201cTitus latched on to the sobriety of that culture, the control that these people hold. It has this fear, this anger, these simmering, sinister emotions right underneath the surface. For an actor, that\u2019s very exciting, and that\u2019s immediately what Titus latched on to and ran with throughout the film, and, of course, just losing that sobriety and becoming more and more unhinged as the movie continues.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUltimately, Kermani believes that the world of \u201cAbraham\u2019s Boys\u201d would be ripe for even more chapters, as she would often discuss with Hill what the future could hold for the titular young men.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis take on Dracula is all about the cycle of generational inheritance and the stories that we build around ourselves,\u201d she says. \u201cThis movie is very much about Abraham\u2019s world, the world he has built, for better or worse. We don\u2019t get to see what Max or Rudy will go on to build for themselves. What is the story they create around themselves and their own experiences? Also, as America enters World War I, the kids go back to Europe. I think there are a lot of interesting things that you can do there, and it\u2019s not a time period that we see a lot on screen, especially in a horror context. I think it\u2019s very ripe for new stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch the trailer for \u201cAbraham\u2019s Boys\u201d below.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In \u201cAbraham\u2019s Boys: A Dracula Story,\u201d writer-director Natasha Kermani made a small-scale family drama about a father raising…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[99284,45329,77,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-258737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-abrahams-boys-a-dracula-story","9":"tag-dracula","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114839905205134820","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}