Nothing like a tribute to the good old days

Rating: 9/10 (18 December 2007)

An incredible amount of special effects, a silly and implausible plot and far too advanced for the time weapons, could I be talking about anything other than a Stephen Sommers' film? Probably not.
From the very beginning, with Victor Frankenstein yelling 'It's alive' taking us back to 1931 and to a young Colin Clive, Van Helsing is a tribute to the legendary Universal monster movies. Everybody's here: Frankenstein, the wolf man, the character of which despite its totally different look still reminds us of the renowned Lon Chaney Jr, Count Dracula in a very anti-Lugosi (or Chris Lee for that matter) look which if my memory doesn't fail me includes an ear ring! Finally there's the famous hunchback called Ygor (surely one of Lugosi's finest performances e.g. Son of Frankenstein, 1939)
Unfortunately this homage to horror classics will go by unnoticed by anybody too young or too ignorant to be familiar with monster movies, and he/she will therefore perceive this movie as another mindless action adventure. This is partly true in terms of the plot: Dracula's women giving birth to dead babies and him trying to bring them back to life using Frankenstein-like techniques. Parallel to this is the werewolf legend and the search for a lycanthropy cure. Both the plot and collection of monsters serve as an homage to movies like Frankenstein meets the wolf man (1943), House of Frankenstein (1944), and House of Dracula (1945). The count appears in the two houses, whereas the wolf man (Larry Talbot) is in all three seeking a cure or an effective way to kill himself.
This movie transforms Bram Stoker's Van Helsing into a monster hunter or exterminator whose assignment just happens to be Dracula and who suffers from nightmares that apparently are repressed memories of his previous existence. Anyway plot-wise it's no Pulitzer prize winner, I grant you that, but don't miss the point, It's a tribute to an era long gone. After viewing many Universal classic horror originals and sequels I couldn't help but like the film. Probably the greatest way to enjoy it is by first watching the original Dracula, Frankestein and Wolfman movies which will enable you to put the film into perspective or in an appropriate context within which to judge it.
To conclude Van Helsing is not (at least in my opinion) your mainstream action adventure, it's a well made fantasy ride that owes its plot and characters to a number of extremely influential horror classics.