With Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu having transfixed audiences just a few months ago, Shudder and RLJE Films are hopping on the Dracula train themselves — but this time, they’re telling his story from an unusual perspective. They’ve just released the trailer for Abraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story, which tells a different kind of vampire story from the perspective of the story’s infamous vampire killer, Abraham Van Helsing, and the family he’s trying desperately to protect.
Abraham’s Boys is directed by Natasha Kermani, and stars Bosch’s Titus Welliver alongside Jocelin Donahue, Aurora Perrineau, Judah Mackey, and Brady Hepner. The film’s synopsis is as follows:
Max and Rudy Van Helsing have spent their lives under the strict and overprotective rule of their father, Abraham. Unaware of his dark past, they struggle to understand his paranoia and increasingly erratic behavior. But when they begin to uncover the violent truths behind their father’s history with Dracula, their world unravels, forcing them to confront the terrifying legacy they were never meant to inherit.
Based on the short story by Joe Hill — son of horror legend Stephen King — the trailer features Welliver as Van Helsing himself, living in a remote cottage with his family in 1915. When his wife and the mother of his children begins to act strangely, he takes it upon himself to teach his boys how to protect themselves, lest the figure that haunts his past return for vengeance.
Hill’s short story was originally published in 2004, as a part of the anthology The Many Faces of Van Helsing, which also featured stories from Tanith Lee, Brian Hodge, Rita Oakes, and more. The story is one of many of Hill’s works that have been adapted for the screen, a cohort which also includes The Black Phone, which not only got one film, but a sequel, hitting theaters in October.
Abraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story hits theaters on July 11. Check out the new trailer below:
