Glorious!

Rating: 8/10 (10 June 2004)

It was glorious, it had all the elements it needed to be perfect! It had action, adventure, mystery, horror and the locations chosen for the filming were excellent. I've got a friend who has seen tens of films with me at the movies and always managed to have nerves of steel but when the first vampire spawn sprang out he jumped off his seat! He felt really ashamed because I keep refreshing his memory on the incident. He is my horror meter and he went off the top so Van Helsing certainly had it's great horror moments. It is much better than films like Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer as thrillers are concerned which give you that one second fright which passes after you munch a bit of popcorn because you feel the atmosphere changing slowly when a scare is coming up (lowering background music and sounds, heavy breathing by a character(s),etc...) and the audience thinks "Oh no, I forgot to empty my bladder before the film!". I am a huge vampire-hunting fan and I was really satisfied on the explanations given about vampire slaying (although I have to check the Dracula vs Werewolf legend out). Go see it. It was great fun and I hope that this genre will be revived after many years of abandonment.