Get the latest gossip

‘Abraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story’ Review: An Intriguing but Sluggish Postscript for the Count’s Nemesis

Natasha Kermani’s film plays a frustrating game of footsie with horror elements in a period tale based on a story from Stephen King’s son Joe Hill.

As Abraham tells his eldest, teenager Max (Brady Hepner), he fears the “same threat has followed us from the Old World to the new.” That evil’s approach may be getting expedited by encroaching railroad construction, whose workers (two played by Aurora Perrineau and Corteon Moore) are camped out nearby. When their stern father again briefly absents himself, the boys’ roughhousing leads to younger son Rudy (Judah Mackey) entering Abraham’s forbidden office, where he and his brother make a highly disturbing discovery at the film’s midpoint. The near-square aspect ratio utilized by Julia Swain’s cinematography echoes “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse” in visualizing an oppressive psychological environment, while at the same time exploiting the beauty of the California countryside (though it’s actually Ventura County locations here, standing in for Central Valley ones).

Get the Android app