I Watch Films: Van Helsing

 

Van Helsing

Universal Pictures had a big hit with The Mummy (1999), which took ideas from their monster films of the 30s and 40s, modern (late 20^th century) film-making and effects and the adventure style of Indiana Jones. They got Stephen Sommers, the director of The Mummy, to try that with other monster films from the 30s and 40s, this time with a bit of James Bond/covert occult action*.

The film opens in Transylvania with Victor Frankenstein giving life to his creature. The scene is reminiscent of Frankenstein (1931), though as well as his assistant Igor** he has a colleague – Count Dracula. Dracula does the old vampire movie thing of appearing and disappearing into the edge of the shot. Dracula kills Frankenstein when he won’t help the vampire; a mob of villagers storm the castle and the creature flees with Frankenstein’s body to a windmill which is destroyed.

In Paris, monster hunter Gabriel Van Helsing defeats Mr Hyde, who transforms back into Dr Jekyll when dead, making him appear a murderer. He’s actually a member of the Knights Of The Holy Order***, who found him amnesiac and injured on a church steps. He’s ordered to Transylvania, where Anna and Velkin Valerious, the last scions of their family, are fighting monsters. Their ancestor swore to defeat Dracula, or else his soul and all his descendants souls will be denied heaven for eternity. They want to avoid this. Van Helsing is given all sorts of gadgets and weapons by Carl, a friar, who Van Helsing brings with him.

Anna and Velkin fight the Wolfman, one of Dracula’s servants, and Velkin is bitten and falls into a river. Van Helsing arrives in the village and they fight the brides of Dracula. That night Velkin comes to warn Anna, but then transforms into a Werewolf and Anna and Van Helsing track him back to Frankenstein’s castle.

The rest of the film revolves around Dracula’s plan. He and his brides have been having children, or rather laying egg pods. Being undead these children are not alive, they need the spark of life, which is where Frankenstein comes in. Dracula attempts to invigorate them with normal people, which doesn’t work, and with werewolf strength, which also doesn’t work, though not until after hundreds of vampire-children have flown across the countryside causing chaos before exploding. Dracula needs the creature.

Dracula also knows Van Helsing, and holds his knowledge of the past over him, but this doesn’t really stop Van Helsing, and it never pays off. There’s a good bit when Dracula kidnaps Anna and takes her to a ball, which is taken from another vampire film.

If I say this is a film made up of parts of other films, then a spark gives it a strange shambling life, or if I suggest that to survive it has battened onto other films to suck the lifeblood from it, then I’m slightly missing the point, which is a pity as it’s a fun suggestion. Unlike Van Helsing, Van Helsing hasn’t forgotten the past, but it doesn’t have anything new to do or say about it. It wants the action to be underpinned by a powerful story of immortality and resurrection, of the horrid mirror held up to life, love and children by Dracula, by Frankenstein, even by the Wolfmen. It wants to say something about sacrifice as well. But it doesn’t have it, it just gestures to other films that had more to say about them. This isn’t even the first time Kate Beckinsale is in a vampire film in a leather corset dubiously designed for action, and unlike Underworld this is a period piece, so there’s no excuse for having it as outerwear.

Watch This: Fun, exciting action adventure
Don’t Watch This: It uses references in place of story, action in place of plot

* This is not the place to discuss their attempt to create their Dark Universe shared movie setting with The Mummy (2017); suffice to say that we are now getting non-shared setting fallout from that effort such as TheInvisible Man and Renfield.

** Fritz in Frankenstein (1931)

*** Although headquartered in the Vatican City, Van Helsing’s boss being a cardinal and his assistant a friar, and the plot revolving around souls, the Order appear to be multi-cultural, suggesting an ecumenical organisation, or at least one that co-operates with other faiths and traditions. This is never expanded on as there was no sequel.