Titus Welliver has traded in his LAPD badge for a stake and some cloves of garlic. The Emmy-nominated actor returns this week in Abraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story, soon streaming on Shudder. It’s a stark pivot from detective noir to gothic horror, reimagining the famous vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing as a haunted patriarch instead of a righteous hero. Based on Joe Hill’s acclaimed 2009 short story, Abraham’s Boys asks a chilling question: what kind of man spends his life desecrating coffins and driving stakes through corpses — and what does that do to his children? Hill’s story deconstructs the myth of heroism at the heart of Dracula, reframing Van Helsing as a man so obsessed with evil that he becomes a prisoner of it himself.

“We know that Van Helsing is a good guy because we’ve been taught that vampires are evil,” Hill said in a recent Collider interview. “But still, his Friday night looks a lot like Ted Bundy’s Friday night.”

Directed by Natasha Kermani (V/H/S/85), the film takes place in 1915, decades after Van Helsing’s original battle with Dracula. Welliver’s Abraham lives in exile with his sons Max (Brady Hepner) and Rudy (Judah Mackey), and his long-suffering wife (Jocelin Donahue). Their quiet rural life is suffocating under his erratic rules — sunlight must be avoided, doors must be bolted, and the boys must never question their father’s nightly rituals. But when a figure from Abraham’s past returns — played by Aurora Perrineau — the family’s fragile sense of safety collapses.

What’s Next for Titus Welliver?

The actor just recently wrapped shooting on The Westies, an MGM+ limited series set in 1980s New York. He stars as Glenn Keenan, an NYPD officer caught between the Irish mob and his own department’s corruption. The show also features J.K. Simmons and began filming in Toronto this summer. Welliver also reprised his role as Harry Bosch in Ballard, Prime Video’s new spin-off centered on Maggie Q’s Detective Renée Ballard, although his name was missing from the announcement for Season 2, which could signal an end to his time as LA’s finest… for now.

But for now, you can catch him facing demons of a very different kind — both literal and metaphorical — when Abraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story begins streaming on Shudder on November 7.