'Abraham's Boys' Review: Joe Hill's 'Dracula' Update Comes to Grim, Slow-Burn Life

Abraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story continues a beguiling tradition of complicating the mythology of famed literary characters. Based on Joe Hill’s short story of the same name, Abraham Van Helsing (Bosch's Titus Welliver) and his feet of clay are the focus of director Natasha Kermani’s patient, grim horror flick, set 18 years after the events of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. As with John Gardener’s Grendel or Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, Abraham’s Boys is not trying to recreate a story you already know; instead, it offers a new perspective on something that has become canon. Adorned with all the expected Gothic trimmings — think creepy dungeons and anthropomorphic shadows — but shot through with piercing, sunlit terror by cinematographer Julia Swain, Abraham’s Boys is a chilling reminder that the monsters “out there” are rarely as terrifying as the ones in our own homes.