Karyn Kusama’s Dracula movie got staked for being too personal

In 2020, director Karyn Kusama was tapped to direct a new version of Dracula for Blumhouse Productions. Like The Invisible Man before it, the Dracula movie was going to be set in the modern day: a chance for Universal to reboot its continually doomed Monsterverse.

But Kusama was going to put a twist on Dracula. For one, the movie was going to be called Mina Harker instead, and focus on the female protagonist of Bram Stoker’s original novel, with Jasmine Cephas Jones tapped to play her. Given Kusama’s legacy of movies about complicated and powerful women, like Jennifer’s Body, Æon Flux, and Girlfight, Kusama’s take on Dracula would’ve given the old story an interesting edge and point-of-view.

But just three weeks before filming started, Kusama’s Dracula movie was canceled. And she’s pretty sure why.

“I would say that the Dracula movie I was making wasn’t a straightforward monster movie,” Kusama shared with Polygon in a video interview. “And so perhaps that was its problem. It was very much rooted in the monsters that start at home in humans. That’s what was going to make it distinctive was that Dracula was more than a force of evil. He was a man. And that is, in some ways, both its reason for being and its obstacle. It was really hard to get the movie made. And even though we got so close, three weeks from shooting, people lost their nerve. So what are you going to do?”

Mina Harker might not have materialized, but Kusama’s been busy with television projects. She serves as an executive producer on Yellowjackets, and next up for her is the third season of AMC’s anthology series The Terror, directing the first two episodes in addition to her role as an executive producer. This season is based on The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle, which follows a man wrongly institutionalized in a mental hospital who confronts a terrifying monster in the halls night after night.

“It’s just a really, really beautiful story of I think systemic failure, personal and ethical failure and how that impacts all of us,” says Kusama. “I’m really, really excited by it. It’s going to be challenging, and it’s going to be great.”

Ideally, Kusama hopes to return to movies sooner rather than later, and she has a very specific notion of what kind of movie she wants to make next.

“I need to be making personal movies again,” she says. “That’s sort of where I really learn and flex and experiment and fail and try and all of it. So that’s kind of what’s next for me, is just figuring out what the next feature is going to be.”

Image: Screen Gems/Courtesy Everett Collection

Her first movie, Girlfight, joins the Criterion Collection May 28. It follows a young woman from Brooklyn, played by Michelle Rodriguez in her first role, who decides to channel her aggression in boxing. Since the movie came out in 2000, both Kusama and Rodriguez’s careers have evolved in very different ways. Rodriguez regularly headlines big action blockbusters, and has a legacy as Letty Ortiz in the Fast and the Furious movies. But Kusama is specifically staying away from big franchises like that.

“It’s not really my vibe. And a lot of that just has to do with the idea that you need to be making something that is of a piece of a large entity with a lot of history and a lot of relationships that people are already bringing to the characters into the worlds,” she says. “For that reason, I’m not sure I’d be the best candidate for that kind of work. But never say never, I guess!”