Hysterical fun offered for those prepared to accept it...

Rating: 7/10 (25 May 2005)

OK. Deep breath. Reputation about to be destroyed. Career as reviewer gone.
I liked Van Helsing.
No, no, no! Let me explain. I think it's awful. The script is terrible. The plot non-existent. It's all just an excuse for some action sequences to be tied together. Now, here's my point: what's wrong with that? I am beginning to rail against the pre-defined notion that all films have to be a Citizen Kane type experience. They must aspire to be the ultimate cinematic achievement they can be. The storyline must be Shakespearean in scope. The dialogue must be a gift from Mamet. The performances must give De Niro sleepless nights for months.
Not always.
Sometimes they can just be fun. And that's what Van Helsing is, it's fun. It's ridiculous, it's hokey, it's silly. But by God, sat in that darkened theatre watching Frankenstein's Monster swing on a rope, Dracula do bloody battle with a Werewolf and the Brides camp it up like harpies possessed, you've just got to roll with it and laugh.
You want to be po-faced? Hell you could rip this to pieces. Nothing makes any sense. The story is riddled with contrivances and conveniences too numerous to mention. Vampire and werewolf lore is shown the nearest exit and told to be cool or else. The dialogue is so cheesy, even Karloff would die of shame saying it. But here's the point. The film doesn't care.
Not in a self-aware kind of way you understand. This isn't some post modern exercise in hip irony. Hugh Jackman doesn't wink at the camera. Roxborough doesn't let the mask slip and reveal that he knows it's all bunkham. You know why? Because they're having fun too! And director Stephen Sommers? He's bouncing up and down in his little directors chair smacked out on sugar having the time of his life playing with the biggest toy set money can buy.
This is clearly a labour of love for Sommers. At the end of the credits is the note 'For My Father.' You just know that when he was 9 Sommers watched every universal Horror movie at least 25 times and lapped it up. He watched them with his father and talked about how cool it would be if the Monsters all met up for a big fight and what would happen. This is that film. This is the film a fan makes. This is the film an obsessive makes to honour the memory of watching monster movies with his father.
Now, I can hear people whispering "if he wanted to honour Dracula and Frankenstein he should have made a serious adaptation of the books rather than urinating all over Shelley and Stoker's prose and turning them into a funfair ride." Point taken and accepted. But Sommers doesn't care about the books. He cares about the films. He cares about Karloff and Legosi and Lon Chaney Jr. He cares about damsels being captured and villagers carrying blazing torches and pitchforks and silver and transformations. He cares about the joy of watching a monster create carnage. You want to delve into the sexual awakening of young women in a suffocating society? Or explore the male masturbation fantasy of creating life without the help of woman kind? Move along please, nothing to see here. You want to watch vampires attack a coach travelling at breakneck speed though the Transylvanian forest carrying Frankenstein's Monster with a Werewolf in hot pursuit? Step right this way.
Van Helsing is not a great film. It's debatable whether or not it's even a good film. But it most definitely is a fun film. And sometimes, that's all you need.