Van Helsing, a film written and produced by Stephen Sommers (The Mummy)

An evaluation by Tracy Griffall

If I was a professional in the film industry, I would have expected this film to be a huge success simply for the cast members of Hugh Jackman (X-Men), Kate Beckinsale (Underworld) and David

Wenham (“300”). At the time of the movie’s release in 2004, Jackman and

Beckinsale were both experiencing huge success and had cult followings for their roles in their respective movie series, X-Men and Underworld. In X-Men,

Jackman’s character is a mutant human with wolverine-like claws, hair and disposition. In Underworld, Beckinsale plays a vampire who hunts and kills werewolves. Ironically or intentionally, the movie Van Helsing is a story based primarily on vampires and werewolves. By casting Jackman and Beckinsale, the producer instantly was drawing on their cult status within the horror and action film genres.

After the spectacular opening weekend, reviews began to pour in but it seemed to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. Bill Gordon of the horror movie review site horrorfanzone.com gave the movie ½ a star saying it was “mind-numbingly awful” and “has no originality, stealing from every film imaginable from Aliens to Indiana Jones to James bond.” He also believed that the horror film “purists” would hate it for excessive computer graphics use and lack of realism. Roger Ebert, on the other hand, reported for the Sun Times that initially a viewer may think the producer was “going for f/x overkill, but by the end, he has somehow succeeded in assembling all his monsters and plot threads into a high- voltage climax.” Ebert also said the movie was like a “Greatest Hits Compilation” with all of the well- known characters making appearances throughout the movie. It seems critics either loved it or hated it.

Personally, I thought the movie was fantastic with its almost non-stop action, horror scenes that would be terrifying if not for the interjections of subtle humor or occasional human-like qualities that the monsters displayed. The story was interesting, the plot mostly fantasty with a splash of believability and the characters were well developed by the end of the movie.

That fact that I loved this movie would not be surprising except that I hate horror films. Other than a couple of semi-horror films I saw on TV when I was younger, I had never seen a real horror film.

That changed in 1981 when a date took me to see The Howling. The movie was dark and evil and had the most terrifying werewolves. I hated it and swore I would never see another horror film. Of course I lied and saw a few more horror films on dates until I learned to just say “no.”

It had been about twenty years since my last horror film. Then, in 2005, my children who both somehow inherited a recessive horror-film-loving gene begged me to watch a horror film with them for

Halloween. Van Helsing was the only option at the library since it was the only film not rated R and was recommended by the librarian as not being excessively violent or terrifying.

Van Helsing is a movie set around the main character and hero, Van Helsing. Not everyone sees

Van Helsing as a hero though as is indicated by the wanted poster at the beginning of the movie which then moves into a chase scene where Van Helsing is hunting down Dr Jekyll’s evil alter ego, Mr. Hyde.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde really have no other purpose in the film other than establishing that Van Helsing is a seeker and destroyer of evil. It also shows Van Helsing with some pretty cool gadgetry that helps him overpower the gigantic monster and send him plummeting to his death from the roof of Notre Dame.

After he has killed this menace that has murdered countless men, women, children and animals, the townspeople call him a murderer. The scene moves to Van Helsing in a confession booth where the audience learns that Van Helsing was saved by the church years earlier when he crawled up the steps of the church with no memory and has been working for the church to rid the world of evil ever since. The remainder of the movie doles out tidbits of Van Helsing’s sparse memories and frustration over not knowing where he came from.

The priest escorts Van Helsing through a secret, underground weapons facility where he is suited up with the latest and greatest weapons designed by a friar with a knack for unstable chemicals and some good one-liners throughout the movie. Van Helsing is informed that he is being sent to

Transylvania to help the last of the Valerious family, a brother and sister, in their task of killing Dracula.

Their family has been charged with killing Dracula before their family line ends or they will be vanquished from heaven. The friar is also informed he is being sent along on the trip to keep Van

Helsing from getting killed.

So off to Transylvania Van Helsing and the friar ride. However, they are not met with a warm welcome after their long journey. They are met with suspicion and hostility from the townspeople. Of course this may have something to do with their recent bad experience with a visitor named Dr.

Frankenstein who had been robbing graves and trying to give life to the composite of the corpses. The townsfolk had just attempted to batter down a castle to destroy Dr. Frankenstein’s lab and ultimately

Dr. Frankenstein and his monster are killed in a fire at a nearby windmill when the monster, who had come to life, tried to run away and save his creator. The townsfolk were interrupted at their windmill bonfire when Dracula and his three brides come soaring onto the scene through clouded skies.

You might be wondering if I am talking about just one movie with

Igor and Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dracula and his brides. But wait! There’s more. Werewolves. My worst nightmare.

The movie spins a tail that brings all of these horror film monsters into one script and the producter makes it work and be fun. You see, Dracula has been funding Dr. Frankenstein’s research hoping that he would succeed in bringing the corpses to life. His ulterior motive is that he and his brides have been reproducing but their offspring are dead. Dracula hopes to find a way to bring them to life.

Dracula also keeps werewolves around to use to spy one what is going on in the village and track down people he needs. Unfortunately, one of the Valerious siblings has a mishap with a werewolf in the beginning of the film and takes a plunge off a giant cliff. You’ll notice that the werewolves don’t have much luck with cliffs in this movie. The poor mutts seemed to be destined for cliff diving. This gets the brother out of the story so that the other sibling, the beautiful and tough vampire hunter, Kate

Beckinsale can team up with Van Helsing to hunt Dracula. Van Helsing’s trustee sidekick the friar helps throughout the movie and provides a little comic relief from the scary parts with his one liners.

Throughout the movie, it becomes apparent that Van Helsing and Dracula have a history but

Van Helsing has no memory of his past. He only sees his past in nightmares of him fighting battles over the centuries. During the latter part of the movie, any loose ends are tied up rather nicely. Van Helsing concurs the villain but not without some personal loss. The Valerius family is saved from being vanquished from Heaven and we get to see more of Velkan Valerious who is quite something to see indeed. Convenienetly and luckily for mankind, if Dracula is killed all evil he has created dies with him so the offspring are sure to be doomed. All in all, the latter part of the movie wraps things up quite nicely and with some of the most action scenes throughout the movie.

So, is this movie worth watching? I would give a definite yes to anyone who just likes to be entertained for a couple of hours and then move on with their life.

Alternate ending to my paper: (If movies can do it, why can’t I?  )

According to the May 2004 edition of Variety magazine, the movie Van Helsing cost nearly $250 million dollars to produce and get into domestic and international theatres (Stowbridge 2004).

Universal Studios spent $160 million in movie production costs alone but had additional expenses for foreign translations, dubbing and subtitles, etc. Opening weekend the film made an admirable $107 million worldwide but was never considered a success because it was far from being profitable.

Financially, this movie may have been unsuccessful and it may have been dubbed c.g.i. overload by the horror movie die-hards but I found it to be completely entertaining. The characters were well-blended and were believable in their interactions. Also, it was just horrifying enough to make me feel like I made it through a horror film without nightmares but also had an underlying humor to it. I think with the compilation of famous characters from Igor to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, how could anyone take it so seriously as to criticize it? This movie was obviously made to entertain and captivate the audience with the special effects and computer aided graphics. This will most likely be the last horror film I see and I’ll probably watch it many more times. I would definitely recommend this movie.

Works Cited Ebert, Roger. "Van Helsing." Sun Times. Chicago: Sun Times Media, May 7, 2004.

Gordon, Bill. Dracula Flick Directed By Stephen Sommers Puts Hugh Jackman In The Van Helsing Role. March 30, 2007. http://horrorfanzine.com (accessed February 20, 2012).

Stowbridge, C.S. "The Numbers: Box Office Data." Variety. New York: Reed Eisevier Inc., May 7, 2004.