Natasha Kermani is back in the director’s chair and offering a very different take on the legend of Van Helsing withAbraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story. Following her feature debut with 2017’sShattered, Kermani began making a name for herself with the 2020 feminist horror-thrillerLucky, which garnered widespread acclaim from critics. Prior toAbraham’s Boys, Kermani was also part oftheV/H/S/85teamfor the virtual reality-skewing segment “TKNOGD”.
Coming intoAbraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story, Kermani is both writer and director of the psychological vampire drama, adapting Joe Hill’s short story of the same name. The film is set 18 years after the events of Bram Stoker’sDracula, shifting the setting to the isolated California desert, where Abraham Van Helsing, played byBoschalum Titus Welliver, is now living with his two sons and wife, Mina, brought to life byDoctor Sleep’s Joceline Donahue. With Mina’s health worsening, and Abraham feeling the kids are old enough, he begins informing them of the dangers of vampires, creating distrust and paranoia in the family.
In honor of the movie’s release,ScreenRantinterviewed Natasha Kermani to discussAbraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story. The writer/director opened up about her approach to adapting Hill’s source material, particularly in making the legend of Van Helsing feel like more of a cult psychological thriller, as well as the changes she made to the short story, namely bringing Mina into the fold, and the surprising inspiration she pulled from when coming up with Dracula’s design in the film.
While having worked with other writers for previous directorial projects,Abraham’s Boysmarks something of a unique venture for Kermani as she finds herself adapting source material. As the writer/director explained, she found herself “very struck” byJoe Hill’s short story, falling in love with both “the simplicity” of it, and its thematic exploration of"this universal idea of seeing a father through the lens of a son who’s starting to come online as an adult". She further found it “exciting as a filmmaker” to have a character with “a very concrete arc” to put to film.
Kermani went on to express being “a huge fan of the classics” in the world of horror, withDraculain particular being a story “I consistently go back to”. DescribingStoker’s novelas “our first found-footage horror story”, the writer/director found the way Hill’s short story took the legend of Van Helsing from “this lense of this monster hunter” toa grounded and complex one with “an element of doubt"to his actions “undeniable”. This also led to her excitement about expanding the story to include other originalDraculacharacters in the film in order to “start playing with our understanding of Abraham and his mythology”.
She did have a traumatic experience, because monsters do exist in our world, and she encountered one, and he became the myth that is Dracula.
GivenAbraham’s Boysdoes largely raise questions about how truthfulVan Helsing is about vampires, it’s fair to wonder what Kermani’s own feelings are on the discussion. Though acknowledging she enjoyed “leaving a bit of ambiguity” in the film in order to still let audiences “have fun with it”,the writer/director shared her belief that “there are no vampires” inAbraham’s BoysorDracula, instead feeling that the “real horror” of both is that Van Helsing “has essentially become a serial killer” and is “driven by this unresolved fear inside of him”.
This, in turn, led to her unlocking the idea of makingAbraham’s Boyssomething of a cult thriller in the midst of its vampire chills, describing Mina, in particular, as being “his No. 1 cult acolyte” after her genuine “traumatic experience” with The Count, though Kermaniquestions whether he was “an immortal being who could turn into wolves and bats and mist”. Instead, in Kermani’s eyes, this experience “drove her to Abraham’s arms” and the “mythology that Abraham created”, making it “more comforting for Mina to believe that there are supernatural monsters than facing the reality of this traumatic event”.
Even when she was putting the film together, Kermani went back and “re-readDraculawith that read on it”, marking every page in which Van Helsing was part of the plot,and found “it works”. “He even says, ‘Yep, the teeth go back in when they’re dead’,” Kermani explained. “There’s no solid proof. And I think, for me, this story is about the power of fear, rather than the fear of a monster. And that, to me, is more scary in a lot of ways.”
Bringing Mina Into The Story Was Key For A Few Reasons
“…It Makes Abraham And Max’s Story More Complex And Interesting.”
While she sought to largely stay true to Hill’s short story, as well as Stoker’s novel, one of the biggestchanges Kermani made toAbraham’s Boyswas bringing Mina Harker, now Mina Van Helsing, into the plot, as she had died sometime before the events of the short story. As to why she made this big change, Kermani had a few reasons behind the decision,the first of which was “I wanted to see the complete family”, as she feels the story benefits from “seeing the full-unit” and “dynamic between the four of them” at the start before diving into the more heartbreaking breakdowns between them.
After pointing out with a laugh that there are “very few women in the short story”, the writer/director went on to explain that another reason for this change was that she found the prospect of exploring “this 18-years-later version” of Mina to be a “really interesting” one,given “we never imagined her as a mother” or as a “middle-aged woman” in Stoker’s novel. This, in turn, led to the feeling she would be a “very rich character” within the world ofAbraham’s Boys, while also making the dynamic between Brady Hepner’s Max and Abraham “more complex and interesting”.
It just gave me a lot more runway to play with, to see that dynamic, and then see that dynamic change.
Even with these various changes made, Kermani praised Joe Hill for the creative freedom he allowed her to have when translatingAbraham’s Boysto the screen, describing the author asbeing “great and very encouraging” after seeing her first version of the script. “I think he felt like we were on the same page in terms of how I was interpreting his story, and where I was bringing it thematically, and in terms of the character drama,” Kermani explained. “So I gave him the complete version of it, and then we chiseled from there.”
Kermani Started With Abraham’s Boys' Cast With Titus (But 1 Surprised Her)
“…Even More Of A Dracula Stan Than I Am.”
With the film being more of a psychological thriller than manypriorDraculaadaptations, having actors who could capture the complex emotions going through its characters was certainly key toAbraham’s Boys' success. In reflecting on the casting journey, Kermani recalls the team first turned to Titus Welliver for the film’s version of Van Helsing before building the family around him. From there, the first major goal she had was"I wanted Max to sort of resemble Abraham” while Rudy would “resemble Mina”, casting a net for a group of diverse actors, leading toThe Black Phone’s Brady Hepner andStillwater’s Judah Mackey.
For Mina, Kermani recalled having known Donahue “socially” before working together onAbraham’s Boys, but knowing she wantedtheLast Stop in Yuma Countystarfor the part, as she viewed Donahue as being “like a gothic raven queen” who “walked straight out of a Victorian-era horror movie”. Much to her surprise, not only was Donahue ready for the part,but is “even more of a Dracula stan than I am”, with the role of Mina Harker having “been a dream role for me for a long time”.
From there, the pair set off trying to determine “what was going to be unique about our Mina”, particularly since the story finds her “in a very different part of her life with Titus”. With theBoschstar, Kermani recalled Welliver being “very excited at the idea of grounding Abraham”,wanting to move beyond the “two-dimensional monster hunter action figure version"of Van Helsing, but instead focus on “his status as a physician, as a doctor, as a working-class man” and as “a man who has some deep-rooted fera that he hasn’t been able to shake his whole life”.
Kermani continued by describing that a key theme of the character and story was “how that fear manifests itself in his relationship to his sons”, which further added to the “grounded family drama” at the heart ofAbraham’s Boys. In order to find the right mixture of tone, the writer/director and her cast talked quite frequently aboutThere Will Be Bloodand other Paul Thomas Anderson movies,in which they were “embracing the environment and the grounded nature” of their storieswithout “shying away from the drama and the Gothic and the humor” of Hill’s short story.
I think all the actors just had a lot of fun with that. And then the sons, we auditioned, which was wonderful, and we found two incredible actors, and I’m just so thrilled with how the family came together. They feel like a real family to me.
“That Silhouette has Always Really Stuck With Me…”
Though the movie raises the question of how real vampires are,Abraham’s Boysdoes still feature its own version of Dracula, seen in dream sequences as Abraham’s stories about The Count begin to create nightmarish paranoia in Max. With his being in dream scenes, there is a somewhat ambiguous nature to his appearance,standing over a foot taller than any of the characters, having a bald head and being dressed in a long black cloak, keeping most of his head and body hidden.
In reflecting on coming up with the design for Dracula in the film, Kermani reveals there being two key sources of inspiration for his appearance, the first of which is that ofthe actor who plays the iconic vampire, Forrest McClain. “Ijust sat down and drew a little sketch one day, and it was sort of based on my friend,” Kermani explained, “who is a very tall, bald, very pale man.”
In addition to McClain, however, the writer/director reveals one of her main sources of inspiration is actually that of the 1997anime adaptation ofBerserk, recalling there being “this incredible death god who shows up” and is initially seen “as a silhouette” in the series. Expressing how that “silhouette has always really stuck with me”,Kermani further felt said character was “very Dracula-coded”, making it the perfect image to pull from for her version of the character.
And then Abbie Martin, our costume designer, who’s amazing, just made it, and it looked great.
But beyond the actual sight of him, one of the ideas behind Dracula’s design inAbraham’s Boysis that he’s only seen “through Max’s perspective” in the film. Therefore, with him having been born and raised in the isolated California desert, he wouldn’t “have all the bells and whistles” of European natives toimagine"this big, extravagant, Francis Ford Coppola version” of Dracula, but instead a “very stripped-down, almost monastic-like” appearance for the character.
Abraham’s Boys
Cast
Abraham’s Boys follows Abraham van Helsing as he relocates his sons, Max and Rudy, to the United States after the events of Dracula.
