A Conversation with "Abraham's Boys: A Dracula Story" writer/director Natasha Kermani

Elements of Madness

Since author Bram Stoker published "Dracula" in 1897, countless adaptations of the novel have been released from films seeking to bring the words on the page to life to authors adding their own spin to the tale through original works. One such adaptive work is author Joe Hill’s "Abraham’s Boys," first published in 2007 and now adapted for the big screen by writer/director Natasha Kermani ("Imitation Girl;" "Lucky") in "Abraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story." Kermani’s original work held its world premiere at The Overlook Film Festival 2025 and is now set for a theatrical release on July 11th.   In the fourth of four interviews, EoM Contributor Joel Winstead sits down with writer/director Natasha Kermani to discuss her approach to adapting Joe Hill’s story, bringing her perspective to the source material, the opportunity of telling a story post-"Dracula," and more in their brief conversation.  In theaters July 11th, 2025.  Official Synopsis: 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.  Official Trailer: youtu.be/-2BJrCzvEZQ  Directed/Written By: Natasha Kermani Based Upon the Short Story by: Joe Hill Cast: Titus Welliver, Jocelin Donahue, Judah Mackey, Aurora Perrineau, Brady Hepner, Corteon Moore

Transcript

00:01Hey guys, Contributor Joel here again. Recently got to sit down with Natasha

00:05Karmani, the director of Abraham's Boys. The Van Helsing family story. Sees the Van Helsing

00:14family 20 years removed from the big fight with Dracula, the run-in. And got to talk

00:23to her about her process, about adapting Joe Hill's short story. And just kind of how

00:29she came at this story from a male perspective, being a female director. Interesting, great

00:37conversation. Hope you enjoy it.

00:42Hi Natasha, how are you?

00:43Hi, I'm good. How are you doing?

00:45I'm doing great, thanks. I watched it last night, still kind of sitting in it. As someone who

00:53loves horror, I'm here for the Dracula Van Helsing of it all. But we're kind of entering the story

00:59kind of years after what we know them for. When you first were, was this a pitch for you

01:05for the script? Or was this something that you were, that they came to you for?

01:09Well, I had already been familiar with Joe's collection, 20th Century Ghosts, and a big fan.

01:14But I always saw this story as sort of a bit of an oddity.

01:18Yeah.

01:19And I was like, wow, that's interesting. So actually, producers sent it to me and said,

01:23hey, do you think there's anything here, you know, as a film, as a feature film? And so

01:27when I started thinking about, okay, well, where would you expand it out? Which way would

01:31you go? What characters could you bring in? That's when I started getting more excited about

01:35it. So it did come to me in the context of like, hey, do you think there's a movie in here?

01:41My answer was yes.

01:42Yeah. What's it like coming at like a novella? Because there's space before, there's space

01:47after. Where do you, you know, how did you come to the conclusion of maybe kind of winding

01:52it on both ends? Often with short stories, adaptation, often the short story is around

01:58like the end of your first act or the midpoint of your film. And I felt the same with this. I felt

02:03this is really like the midpoint of the movie is Joe's story. And so that very much helped sort of

02:10like play structurally, like, okay, well, this is the middle. And then where do we go backwards?

02:14I know I wanted to bring Nina back into the story. She's just so essential. And I wanted to see the

02:19dynamic of the family. And so I knew that that was kind of like backing up, we wanted to bring

02:25Nina back in. And then it was just a lot of fun, because I got to go back to one of my favorite

02:29novels, which is Dracula. And I sort of pinned all of the sequences with Abraham and read it with Joe's

02:39story in mind. And it was just like, wow, this works so well. Like, this is all there. I'm not

02:45changing a thing. I'm just looking what's already there and imagining it 18 years from now, right?

02:50Like with a slightly different lens to, you know, you take two steps to the left and look at the

02:55material. So that was just a joy. And those are my favorite projects to work on.

03:00Yeah, there's this really cool. So Joe's story, which I love, had this really cool,

03:05like father son generational dynamic. And then there's this, seeing it on film, it really kind

03:11of fleshes out like this masculinity, father into son, generational trauma going on. Was that that

03:19seemed like a very much a conversation that you were trying to have?

03:22Absolutely. I mean, it's so tied into that's Joe's whole take, right? Like, that's what he brought to

03:27the material was this idea of cycle of the of the cycle between fathers and sons that Dracula does not

03:34have. And Dracula also does not really provide a biography for Van Helsing. He just sort of pops into

03:40the story with like this authority figure with all the answers. And so I think what Joe's story made

03:45me ask is like, okay, where the hell did this guy come from? Who is he? What's his deal? Like, how

03:52come he's just coming in and he has all the answers? And where did those answers come from? And so really

03:58using Joe's story to inform, you know, my gut instincts of where he came from, and building out

04:05that biography backwards allowed me to then imagine him as a father and imagine him and imagine the

04:12environment that he would create in his home with sons of his own. And yeah, I think the story is

04:19very much about patriarchy and fathers and sons and what we inherit.

04:25Yeah, it all comes across and I really enjoyed it. And thanks for making it. And thanks for your

04:30time today. Thank you so much. Thank you for watching.

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Transcript

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