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Loads of horror films have shifted the main target from vampires to vampire hunters, imagining an underground community of stake-drivers combatting the elusive breed of bloodsuckers. Generally the 2 sides overlap, as within the “Blade” movies. “Abraham’s Boys” has the gist of an unique angle that goes straight to the first supply of recent vampire mythologies.

Right here, the protagonist is Dutch undead professional Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, who’d been known as to England to battle a supernatural nemesis in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula.” That polymath, famously performed by everybody from Peter Cushing, Laurence Olivier and Anthony Hopkins to Willem Dafoe (in final yr’s “Nosferatu”), is now a recluse within the New World, hiding out from spectral pursuers 18 years after he’d helped orchestrate the Depend’s extinction. 

The twist is that worry of reprisal has turned this realized man right into a paranoid tyrant, holding his household hostage in joyless isolation at a distant farmhouse in California’s Central Valley. He’s ostensibly defending them from a menace whose nature has been stored secret from two younger sons. In writer-director Natasha Kermani’s adaptation of a brief story by Joe Hill (who’s Stephen King’s son), their discovering out dad’s fact eventually solely awakens doubt. Has their father really been defending all of them this time, or is he himself the true “monster,” controlling their lives for no cause past irrational fanaticism? 

It’s an attention-grabbing concept, as definitely the home management freak is not less than as horrifying a species as some ghoul of the creativeness. However that idea’s exploration proves lower than totally satisfying in a characteristic so slow-burning it by no means fairly catches fireplace. Intriguing and atmospheric sufficient, “Boys” in the end feels overstretched even at just below 90 minutes. Horror followers lured in by the premise — in addition to the marketed subtitle “A Dracula Story,” which doesn’t seem onscreen — could emerge irked that their persistence goes unrewarded by a lot in the way in which of precise horror content material. 

A short prologue, set in 1915, finds an exhausted girl (Fayna Sanchez) strolling alone on a rustic street at nightfall. A passing horseman ignores her plea for help earlier than she’s attacked by a shadowy determine — one we assume is linked to a sure ageless Transylvanian aristocrat. Not distant, Van Helsing (Titus Welliver) will get welcomed dwelling after a brief journey by spouse Mina (Jocelin Donahue) and their kids. The couple arrived at this far-western vacation spot after stints in London and Amsterdam, hoping to get a secure distance between themselves and fanged peril.

As Abraham tells his eldest, teenager Max (Brady Hepner), he fears the “identical menace has adopted us from the Outdated World to the brand new.” That evil’s method could also be getting expedited by encroaching railroad development, whose staff (two performed by Aurora Perrineau and Corteon Moore) are camped out close by. The daddy warns that mom Mina, who survived the Depend’s thirsty attentions earlier than the century’s flip, might nonetheless be prone to the “unholy sickness” she was uncovered to then.

And certainly, this Goth-looking, neurotic anomaly in a sun-bleached panorama quickly takes to her mattress, weakened and terrified. When their stern father once more briefly absents himself, the boys’ roughhousing results in youthful son Rudy (Judah Mackey) getting into Abraham’s forbidden workplace, the place he and his brother make a extremely disturbing discovery on the movie’s midpoint. Upon returning, their dad should present a grisly “lesson” to his offspring that explains a lot. Or does it? For Max particularly, his mother or father’s lifelong humorless severity appears increasingly more like malevolent delusion beneath a cloak of puritanical righteousness. Are you able to belief any authority determine who excuses homicide as “God’s will”?

It’s a robust battle, to not point out one in every of perpetual real-world relevance. Nevertheless it doesn’t get very completely explored in Kermani’s screenplay, which teases with occult elements that develop into purple herrings, then doesn’t present the choice rationale of quasi-religious hysteria a lot definition, both. Maybe such detailing wasn’t within the unique story by Hill (who additionally penned the idea for the “Black Cellphone” movies), however this characteristic remedy wants extra fleshing out than the director gives. 

In distinction to the tight mixture of expectation-upsetting concepts and suspense mechanics in her 2020 first characteristic “Fortunate,” which was written by star Brea Grant, “Abraham’s Boys” is spare each aesthetically and by way of incident. That works nicely to arrange a milieu of bleak social segregation beneath a harsh patriarch’s thumb. The near-square side ratio utilized by Julia Swain’s cinematography echoes “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse” in visualizing an oppressive psychological setting, whereas on the identical time exploiting the fantastic thing about the California countryside (although it’s truly Ventura County areas right here, standing in for Central Valley ones). The design workforce evokes life 110 years in the past through modest, efficient strokes. 

However regardless of these skillful trappings, the story quickly feels ponderous. Its occasional goosing by nightmare sequences solely briefly enliven characters that stay one-dimensional, and pacing that drags en path to an insufficiently explosive climax. Welliver, greatest recognized for the “Bosch” collection, bears down so laborious on Abraham’s priggishness that we by no means actually glimpse the lunacy or worry that may make him a tragic determine. The at all times welcome Donahue is allowed a extra mercurial emotional vary, however too little scripted substance for it to have a lot affect. The juvenile actors are competent if likewise underserved. Amongst briefly-seen assist gamers, solely Jonathan Howard will get one thing extra totally developed to work with, in his single sequence as an outdated household acquaintance who reveals up late to make a really particular plea.

Because the celluloid universe spun from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” continues to accrue remakes, spin-offs, addendums and miscellany, “Boys” does present one doubtlessly compelling footnote. However its execution appears like a missed alternative. We’re left ambivalent about having adopted Van Helsing all the way in which to America — not as a result of he brings terror with him, however as a result of he seems to be type of a bore.

“Abraham’s Boys” opens in restricted launch on July 11, with streaming entry on style platform Shudder deliberate for later this yr.