I’ve seen my fair share of Dracula or rather vampire movies in my day. They come in all shapes and sizes. Very rarely do they stand up to the original Bela Legosi Dracula, but last year’s remake of Noferatu was one of the better ones I’ve seen in quite a while. Abraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story isn’t quite the vampire film it’s advertised as even though it would have you believe otherwise. It deals with the periphery of vampires and Dracula but does delve completely into the genre.  That’s a sad thing because I had high hopes for this film because of its main star Titus Welliver.

Welliver plays Abraham Van Helsing, the famous vampire hunter. After he rescued Mina Harker from Dracula, he took her to the sunny hillside area in Central California in the year 1915, where he married her and started raising a family there. 18 years after the death of Dracula, and far away from the Gothic murky dark streets of London.  She’s now Mina Van Helsing (Jocelin Donahue), a happy wife and mother of two boys, Rudy (Judah Mackey) and Max (Brady Hepner), or so it seems. The boys are learning math and other educational things from their father, but when he starts sharing with them a little of his trade, they get spooked. Especially Max, who doesn’t believe his father. This leads to a big confrontation between the father and son. 

Titus Welliver is known by most audiences for playing the hard-nosed LA Detective turned PI Harry Bosch in both Bosch and Bosch: Legacy on Prime Video and Freevee He was the perfect person to play this character in these series. I think he may have been a little out of place in this film, though. He goes in and out of an Eastern European accent as the doctor who has secrets he kept to himself until he had no other choice but to share them with his two sons. He’s also caring for his sick wife, who came up with a mystery ailment. His dark California tan makes him stand out quite a bit. For an Eastern European, leathery tanned skin doesn’t match the character. He may have been attached too closely to the project to let anyone else play the character. As a fan of his, I’m sad because I don’t like to put him down, but I call it like I see it, and he wasn’t the right choice for this role.

The film starts out slowly introducing viewers to the characters. And the scenarios they exist in the context of the story, but it doesn’t pick up steam that we’ll. There are a few dramatic sequences, and some blood is spilled, but it doesn’t feel earned by how slow the pace of the story is. Even the music that should help ramp up the tension doesn’t do much for the story. The movie starts out at a slow pace and never really picks up seed at all.  I don’t know if that’s because of the screenplay by Natasha Ketmani and Joe Hill of the direction by Kermani. Either way, this was a pretty slow and boring film to watch.  Vampire movies should be exciting and scary. This was neither. There were a few black and white dream sequences that added a flair to the film, but that was it.

The setting of the film in California Hills was very beautiful.  The west coast sunset on the rolling hills quite nicely. The white house juxtaposed on the hill with the backdrop of the beautiful sun and hillside were pretty breathtaking. When the film got inside the house the rooms were lit very well. The old looking dark wood floors and walls looked striking. The cinematography by Julia Swain was one of the best parts of the film. It’s a shame the rest of the movie couldn’t be as good as it looked on screen. Hopefully, Swain will get some more projects in the future.

The supporting cast that includes the two sons of Abraham Van Helsing was okay but not great. If the film was longer, maybe some of these characters could have been fleshed out more. Even a potential romance could have blossomed between a couple of them. The titular characters were fine with Brady Hefner being the standout  among the pair. I liked where these characters were going in the context of the story, but the story didn’t flesh them out enough for me. The Mackey character of Judah deserved more screen time and a little more to do in the overall film. He was a character that had potential. The cast, as I said, was fine, but they didn’t get enough chances to shine in this story. Which was pretty bereft of character development. 

Abraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story was a movie I had high hopes for because I’m a fan of vampires and Dracula stories on the whole. This one, though, was quite boring and pretty dull from the very beginning. It had potential from the start but eventually got mired in its own mundane existence.  Welliver is one of my favorite actors working today, but he may have been miscast in this role. His California tan and bad accent were a bad combination for this character. That is a shame because I wanted to see what else he could do besides the great Harry Bosch. The cinematography was beautiful, and the supporting cast was fine, but the story failed this film . That’s the fault of the writer/director Kermani and Hill, respectively.  It’s hard to make a good movie, and this one is a prime example of what you don’t do. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to say this wasn’t a very good vampire/Dracula story.

2 stars

Dan Skip Allen