Abraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story is the upcoming adaptation of Joe Hill’s acclaimed short story of the same name, which is in turn inspired by Bram Stoker’s iconic piece of gothic horror, Dracula. The movie stars Brady Hepner, тιтus Welliver, and Jocelin Donahue in the lead roles, with newcomer Natasha Kermani behind the camera.

For the most part, the story of Abraham’s Boys stays true to Hill’s narrative: it follows the two young sons of Abraham Van Helsing as they reckon with their father’s paranoid behavior and erratic experiments. The story offers a fresh take on Stoker’s timeless character, exploring themes as universal as humanity, ambition, and fatherhood in the process.

However, Kermani’s on-screen adaptation of Abraham’s Boys also takes some major creative liberties and diverges from Hill’s story in many instances. Speaking with ScreenRant‘s Grant Hermanns, the director elaborated upon her decision to rewrite the characters’ backstories and introduce a key figure who is absent from the book: Mina Van Helsing. Check out her full comments below:

EXCLUSIVE: For me, bringing Mina back in was a no-brainer. That was the first thing we did, and also I find this 18-years-later version of Mina really interesting. We see her, and we get to know her so well as a young woman, but we never imagined her as a mother […] It just felt like a very rich character. There’s also very few women in the short story. [Laughs] So I was sort of curious, “What happens if we bring her back in, and how does that complicate the relationship between the sons and the father?” Rather than just having the same dynamic the whole film through, how does bringing mother in, and all of her complexity, and then, it makes Abraham and Max’s story more complex and interesting?

Joe Hill, who was also a part of this interview, was fully supportive of this change to Abraham’s Boys and spoke about the new complexities of the family with Mina being there. Check out his comments below:

EXCLUSIVE: The biggest creative change between the short story and the film is that in the short story, Max Van Helsing, my hero, remembers his mother, Mina, but she’s been out of the picture for, like, 10 years. He lost her when he was like seven years old, and Natasha brings Mina into the film, and we see her as the emotional heart of that family. She’s where Max gets his sense of empathy, and his curiosity, and some of his courage, and some of his willingness to challenge the world around him. But it’s also scary, because we sense Mina is slipping away psychologically, we sense she’s losing her mind, and we feel intensely that she’s under threat, that she is facing mortal peril from forces unknown. And that’s terrifying.

What Mina’s Return Means For Abraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story

The Character Helps Enhance The Story’s Key Themes

Bringing Mina into the spotlight for Abraham’s Boys opens the door to some rich character work that expands upon the original story’s themes of family and domestic harmony. While she’s physically absent from Hill’s original tale, Mina’s character still looms over the narrative.

Abraham’s Boys is a fundamentally different take on Dracula, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that this version will also take some major swings when it comes to the details of the story. This change also reaps the benefit of more тιԍнтly connecting Abraham’s Boys to Stoker’s original novel, as the two books actually share very few characters.

Our Take On Mina Van Helsing In Abraham’s Boys

Jocelin Donahue Elevates The Character Beyond The Script

The decision to include Mina Van Helsing in Kermani’s adaptation of Abraham’s Boys is a very intelligent one, not just because of how impressive Jocelin Donahue’s performance is, but because of how effectively it elevates the story’s key themes and switches the atmosphere from one of all-out horror to subtler, more psychological terror.

Reviews for Abraham’s Boys have admittedly been mixed, but this thematic change is among the few aspects that most audiences can agree works about the project. While her lingering absence is still effective in Hill’s original story, having the character actually appear in the film and directly influence the children’s journeys is a huge ᴀsset for Abraham’s Boys.