“Draculaw” launches deep into the less-explored subgenre of corporate horror, throwing the book at everyday monsters within the ‘system’.
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I have been pondering for days how to summarize and describe this film for you, as I work through my wildly mixed feelings about this extremely indie entry.
A familiar battle of good and evil is presented in Draculaw, fought between two lawyers, Arc Gabriel and The Counselor. The Counselor wields the law for personal, selfish reasons (dark). Arc Gabriel leverages it for protection and salvation (light).
As we forge toward their final battle, the film presents an amusing anthology of short vignettes, demonstrating how the law can be taken to extremes within common daily circumstances, causing outlandish and devastating consequences.
“Some monsters look like people, but they are not really human. All kinds of nasty creatures live among us.”
Draculaw consciously echoes the likes of Nosferatus of past and present iterations, Beetlejuice, and My Cousin Vinny. It also includes a timely parallel with pennies (both lower-case coin and upper-case character in this context) from Final Destination Bloodlines.
However, after throwing out those connections, it is important to ground this reflection accurately.
Draculaw has the look and feel of a low-budget personal injury lawyer advertisement.
This likeness to those cliché commercials felt like a deliberate aim, and overall, it landed more than it missed.
In this context, The Counsellor is our Orlok and Arc Gabriel our blend of Ellen and Thomas Hutter (equal parts clever hero and aloof male protagonist). It is set in Pennsylvania, which I take as a Transylvania nod. I know, I’m blending Nosferatu and Dracula. Just roll with it.
If you can stomach these kinds of haphazard mash-ups, you possess the generous forgiveness skills to navigate Draculaw.
Parts of this are genuinely amusing. As someone who has spent most of my career in competitive corporate spaces and worked with lawyers and negotiators closely, many scenes are painfully believable and did make me chuckle (e.g., safety seals on condiment bottles, playground merry-go-round safety).
However, Draculaw will land most effectively with an extremely niche audience.
Like… if a law firm held an offsite, overnight retreat? This should ABSOLUTELY be offered as a midnight screening or projected in the background over cocktails. Heck, it could even work for a cheeky law school recruitment event.
This film is for those who love (or are understandably exhausted by) the law, are amenable to semi-spooky content, and have a warped sense of humour.
So, for those who fall into this audience sliver? I think it’s pretty funny.
“Let’s file an injunction….against the supernatural.”
It appears that writer/director Scott Deshaine is a comic book creator. This definitely explains his storytelling style – and the cool promotional artwork.
For an indie film, there were some solid effects. I enjoyed the chase sequence with Ava’s headless body and the post-credit scene with the lizard-eyed compact (I wish that nifty little element had been included earlier).
My biggest concern? Length. I actually think this would have been absolutely perfect if it had been tightened up and the runtime cut in half.
Have you been following the TikTok collaboration between Rachel Ruff Cuyler and the band Poolside? She took their recently released track and suggested cuts and a rework, grounded in really good intentions because she really dug the vibe and potential. I am not typically a fan of this kind of unsolicited creative interjection; however, I wanted to “pull a Rachel” and make some liberal cuts and put the pieces together differently.
While I appreciate that it offers important creative control, sometimes being both writer and director does not serve the content well. I feel this might be one of those cases.
If the Draculaw team takes on another project, I recommend they welcome a Rachel to the table. They proved they know how to craft a clever story. I just feel someone could have helped loosen the grip on holding space for every idea and detail.
Still, even with the excess length and some unrealized potential, this one has been surprisingly memorable. I find my mind drifting back to it unusually often, causing me to shake my head at this oddball hybrid. I warm to it the more I sit with it.
I actually hope Draculaw inspires others to explore this corporate horror space and move it from a policy paper into some powerful, enforceable legislation.
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