Writer/director Natasha (The Dreadful/Lucky/Imitation Girl) Kermani's Abraham's Boys: A Dracula Story is a stylish yarn (acquired by RLJE Films and Shudder) that extends the legacy of Bram Stoker's perennial Count by focusing on Professor Abraham Van Helsing and his sons.
The eerie exploit begins in 1915 California, when a passing lass (Fayna Sanchez) appears to have been bitten by a vampire. Van Helsing, portrayed by Titas (Bosch/Sons of Anarchy/Deadwood/Lost) Willgiver, resides nearby with his wife, Jocelin (House of the Devil/Insidious 2/Offseason) Donahue's Mina and their boys, Brady (The Black Phone) Hepner's Max and Judah (Deadcon) Mackey's Rudy. The professor tells his sons that something unearthly is on the prowl and prepares them to confront it.
According to the professor, their mother is still tainted by Dracula's blood, which holds the magnetic means to lure vampires, prompting them to thirst and kill wherever she roams. This conundrum, he stresses, is heightened by California's mounting population, among which the undead are said to be a part. Van Helsing arranges to shield his sickly spouse from these creatures and asks Max, his older boy, to be extra vigilant.
When the boys discover the bitten lass in their basement, the story takes a frenetic turn, with their father revealing his vampire-hunting days. He teaches his sons the fine art of slaying the undead, though only Max seems to stomach the procedure, albeit more by default than choice. Thereafter, Max meets Aurora Perrineau's nomadic Elsie, who'll come to impact the boys' circumstance, but are their cumulated lessons and encounters enough to stop the reputed parasite? The answer lies in the fable's surprising finale.
Abraham's Boys does an excellent job presenting a motif of belief-vs-disbelief, reminiscent of Bill Paxton/Brent Hanley's Frailty, but coddled by a humid, ominous aura, similar to Tom Tryon/Robert Mulligan's The Other. It's not so much how one prepares to fight evil, but rather what heats one's veins and enflames one's fears, creating a dread so palpable that it can even withstand the daylight. (One scene, in particular, epitomizes this notion, when a bat enters the family's sunlit kitchen as Mina concocts a pot of blood pudding.)
From another vantage, the movie invokes a Bradbury-ian quality, as when Max and Rudy discuss the validity of vampires in their bedroom, in what plays like an exchange that Will Holloway and Jim Nightshade may have engaged in Something Wicked This Way Comes. In addition, their father's reunion with Jonathan Howard's Arthur Homewood is the grown-up equivalent to such, ringing with the same Bradbury tonality, only wrought with a "say it ain't so" cynicism.
On still another front, the movie's structure references Philip Ridley's The Reflecting Skin, a tale told through both young and old eyes about suspected vampirism in a sleepy town, where varied regrets (similar to those unearthed in Abraham's Boys) dig deep.
Because of its complexity, Abraham's Boys is superior to most contemporary, vampire movies, which tend to be fast, fun and tangible, but with little to resonate for the long run. This one dares to be more, by captivating and provoking, while respecting the tropes of Stoker's impassioned classic, though viewed through an esoteric lens. For that I give Kermani enormous credit in bringing her vision to the screen. Her creation isn't just a come-and-go, horror picture, absorbed today and forgotten tomorrow, but rather one designed to be remembered, and mark my words, it will be.
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