Interview - Abraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story : Let’s talk with Natasha Kermani

By Mulder, Los Angeles, 26 june 2025

Abraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story, set for release on July 11, 2025, takes a bold detour from traditional vampire narratives by focusing not on the monstrous Count Dracula, but on the unsettling legacy left behind in his wake. Adapted from Joe Hill’s short story and directed by Natasha Kermani, the film transports us years past Dracula, into the isolated world of an older, disturbed Abraham Van Helsing, now a recluse in rural 1914 America. His two sons, Max and Rudy, are raised under his increasingly erratic, paranoia-fueled roof, caught in a psychological tug-of-war between trust and terror. Rather than indulging in gothic pageantry, Kermani drills into the internal decay of a family marked by secrecy and unspoken trauma. This is horror that simmers—a slow-burn tale of inherited fear, shifting identity, and the consequences of believing in monsters too long.

Backed by Tea Shop Productions and Illium Pictures with distribution from RLJE Films and Shudder, the 89-minute film debuted at the 2025 Overlook Film Festival, earning early praise for its unnerving restraint. The American frontier setting becomes an oppressive presence, where sunlight can’t quite pierce the psychological gloom blanketing the Van Helsing family. Titus Welliver’s portrayal of Abraham adds gravitas and ambiguity, while Brady Hepner and Judah Mackey give life to sons torn between loyalty and survival. Jocelin Donahue as the absent mother Mina and Aurora Perrineau as the mysterious Elsie inject further instability into the crumbling household. Early glimpses via the trailer hint at a dread-driven atmosphere akin to The Witch or The Others, where horror hides in withheld truths and generational scars. This isn’t just a Dracula spin-off—it’s a haunting meditation on what happens when fear becomes your family’s inheritance.

Q: What drew you to adapting Joe Hill’s short story into a feature-length psychological horror film ?

Natasha Kermani: I loved Joe's short story—I thought it was wonderful. I loved the simple story of a son and a father, a father and a son, sort of coming together and clashing with each other. And then the added element of Dracula, of the classic Dracula, and sort of imagining, you know, what characters we could bring in, how we could sort of play around in that sandbox. So it was the combination of those two things that was really fun.

Q: You’ve previously explored internalized fear in Lucky and Imitation Girl. How did those experiences shape your approach here ?

Natasha Kermani: Yeah, I mean, it’s really the same approach. It's all grounded, it's all real—real-life fears. The monsters are not necessarily some external creature. It all comes from inside; it all comes from our minds. And it was the same with this—taking it from their perspective, their view of the world, and then bringing the horror from there.

Q: The film is rich with restraint—quiet dread instead of jump scares. How did you find the balance between subtle horror and emotional intensity ?

Natasha Kermani: That’s a really good question. I think it always has to come from the drama. As long as the jump scare, or the quick horror beat, comes from what's happening in the scene, it will work. But this film, I think, is more about dread and that kind of slow fear rather than quick jumps.

Q: Can you talk about working with Titus Welliver to develop such a nuanced, layered version of Van Helsing ?

Natasha Kermani: Titus Welliver is incredible—obviously very experienced. Everyone loves him as Bosch, but I remember him from Deadwood, which is sort of in a similar world to our film. We talked quite a bit about his experience on Deadwood and being in that time period. Titus wanted to do his own version of Van Helsing—not just the same flamboyant Anthony Hopkins version of the monster hunter, but something much more sober, much more grounded. Grounded in him as a physician, as a working-class guy. And I just loved that perspective, so we took that and ran with it.

Q: You shifted the typical vampire narrative toward a father-son tragedy. What was your approach while developing the script ?

Natasha Kermani: For me, it was going back to the original material—Bram Stoker's novel—and specifically looking at all the scenes with Van Helsing, and seeing how I could bring that into Joe’s story and expand on it. I would also say it was really about keeping it in the perspective of the son, of Max. He doesn’t know the world of Dracula, right? So figuring out how to integrate the old world with the new world—that was really where we started.  

Q: What was the biggest challenge in adapting a short story into a feature without losing its emotional core ?

Natasha Kermani: I mean, the challenge is just knowing when you've gone too far. You have to make sure you don't get so big that you lose, like you said, the emotional core. I always knew that the short story was going to land somewhere in the middle of our movie. So for me, it was about placing that in the center, then working backwards and forwards a little, and making sure it didn’t get too crazy or out of control.

Natasha Kermani is an Iranian‑American director and screenwriter, best known for her genre‑bending films Imitation Girl (2017) and Lucky (2020). A NYU Tisch graduate, she co‑founded Illium Pictures and blends sci‑fi, thriller, and horror to explore identity, technology, and female experience with striking visual storytelling . In Imitation Girl, she examines otherness through parallel female identities in surreal, emotive settings, while Lucky uses slasher motifs to deliver a feminist thriller rooted in psychological trauma and satire . Most recently, she directed a segment for V/H/S/85 (2023), contributed to the upcoming Abraham’s Boys (2025), and continues developing The Dreadful, a medieval‑horror project . Her Iranian‑American heritage, passion for genre, and background in sound and music beautifully converge in each haunting, metaphor‑rich film she crafts.

Synopsis :
Abraham van Helsing moves his two sons to the United States in an attempt to escape their past.

Abraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story
Written and directed by Natasha Kermani
Produced by Tim Wu, James Howard Herron, James Harris, Leonora Darby
From the Joe Hill’s original short story
Starring Titus Welliver, Brady Hepner, Judah Mackey, Jocelin Donahue , Aurora Perrineau 
Music by Brittany Allen
Cinematography : Julia Swain
Edited by : Gabriel de Urioste
Production companies : Illium Pictures / Tea Shop Productions
Distributed by RLJE Films, Shudder (United States)
Release date : July 12, 2025 (United States)
Running time : 89 minutes