Bad Movie Beatdown: Van Helsing (REVIEW) 

This review was originally posted in October 2011, and has been re-cut for this re-posting, 2m 8s from it's run time. Cuts have been made to tighten up film footage, and cut a few jokes I wasn't a fan of. For some reason, I didn't have the master for this episode (edited by my friend), just a converted FLV (that I used to upload to Blip to) that I had to convert to an MP4 to re-edit, hence why this looks a little lower quality than my other re-uploads. This appears to have quietly become one of my most controversial reviews (the "unofficial" version has a high dislike bar), and I do think I'm probably a little too dismissive of the film, but I do stand by a lot of what I raised here. Have fun! Also... WTF is going on with my hair in this one. Clearly my greatest fear was a hair cut.

I think i'm in the minority here. I enjoyed Van Helsing, it was a dumb popcorn movie, just turn your brain off and have fun.

Just watch "Penny Dreadful" for all the positive that this movie missed. Great creatures that includes Dorian Gray, Frankenstein, his monster, Vampires, Witches, Wolf Man, and more, in a great plot over three seasons. and most wonderfully, it is beautifully shot and costumed. Must see if you like all the Victorian stories!

The light grenade tearing everyone into skeletons was also done in Blade 2, and done against vampires as well in that one. Really Hollywood, you need to stop thinking that we can't remember these things from movie to movie.

I always enjoyed this movie and didn't really notice all the problems till your review. I can see the glaring problems now but I still think its a fun movie to watch. It's at least not boring.

Fun Fact: the actor playing the monster also played the monster in Young Frankenstein, the Musical.

It's a bad movie, but I gotta admit I always have fun watching it, especially the Dracula/Wolfman fight at the end. Over the top non-quality CGI, but it's a guilty pleasure for sure.

I liked Van Helsing, too. It's meant to be campy. I think the brides were the best thing about the movie, they should've had their own movie.

I don't know why (*coughvampirescough*) but when I was a child, I always thought this and Underworld were a same franchise. Didn't help that both main female characters were played by Kate Beckinsale.

23:07 I'd like to believe that was Hugh Jackman's genuine reaction once he realised how bad this movie was.

As a Bulgarian the "Van Helsing turns into wolverine" joke was even funnier to me because in Bulgarian Wolverine's name is translated to "The Wearwolf"(Because I guess the translators thought wolverines weren't intimidating or something)

Vampire furniture? Why can't we have a movie about that?!

I love this movie. It's really bad but in such a good way. The stagecoach exploding is always hilarious.

I found the creativity of taking something pre-existing and so many different monsters and melding it into one story is actually something to be admired in this film. They did it without it too much trouble - and it created a rich environment that hinted at more monsters. It makes you think it these monsters exist in the same universe, then what other monsters exist? Some characters may not have been necessary, like the Velarius family, but they were a reason for Van Helsing to go after Dracula. As for the action sequences, its a monster movie. You need the CGI for the stunts otherwise you wouldn't be able to show off their abilities to the fullest. Maybe it was overloaded with monsters, but it was a fun movie that people can watch and truly lose themselves in if they're not purists.

That bit with the cat killed me. XD

It's called Lycanthropy, btw... ;) Though I am guessing you call it "werewolfism" as a joke?

This movie is a huge guilty pleasure for me.

Surprised you didn't make the comparison to the way he holds Anna's dead body in his arms to the way he holds Jean Greys dead body in his arms in X-men 3.

You have to admit though, the transition from the universal logo to the movie was pretty good.

The best advice in this movie is also line from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by the way.

I know I am one of the very few people who didn't hate LXG...

How in the world does a movie with Frankenstein’s Monster, vampires, werewolves, and Hugh Jackman end up being mediocre?

Funny thing I just realized, the Church is afraid that the Valarious family will be stuck in Purgatory if Dracula isn't defeated. Yet, a majority of Transylvanians (and Romanians in general) are Orthodox Christian and don't believe in a Purgatory. Edit: There actually is a substantial Catholic influence in Romania.

Given that the movie has a Sleepy Hollow vibe to it in places, wouldn't it have made more sense for the studio to put Tim Burton in charge of directing? They can still credit Sommers as the writer, but these characters are far better suited to Burton's sensibilities.

25:29 - To be fair, I don't want to meet the person who can take a tackle from a nine foot wolfman with the strength of twelve linebackers and get up like it's nothing

Who was the brilliant idea to turn the exposition fairy erudite character Van Helsing and turn him into a bad ass vampire hunter? Van Helsing was elderly and a scholar in the book, not a James Bond Ripoff

I don't understand why this video has a high Dislike Bar this was one of your Best Reviews Including your Transformers 2 review, Legend of Chung Li Review, The Ugly Truth Review, and your Gamer Review

I honestly enjoy this movie a lot. It is just pure dumb fun. This movie has the best iteration of a werewolf I have seen in any movie. It actually looks badass

21:19 Personally I feel like it would've been more appropriate to use Darkstalkers music here

my thought after watching this movie was that it would make a great wolverine prequel. why is wolverine so animalistic? why does he have no memory? why does he side with the xmen? his anamantium skeleton history was just the latest in a very long line of adventures, starting from hundreds of years before this movie took place. and the big reason he is likened to a wolverine in xmen?,... because at one point, he was actually a wolf(man). how about that for an origin story?

The classic Universal horror films. A line-up of movies so awesome that even some of their lesser installments like Man Made Monster and Captive Wild Woman were surprisingly good. The reason they were so good? Universal knew how to make you love the villains. Not in a "Ooh, they're so bad" way (aside from maybe Dracula), but in a tragic, tortured, sympathetic way. This movie doesn't really do any of that. It's too busy with action scenes and its questionable plot. This movie renders the intriguing and alluring Dracula into a camp over-actor and the dangerous but misunderstood Frankenstein's monster into something of a marshmallow. As for the Wolf Man, the Velkan Valerious character is no where near as good at selling the monster's pathos as Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Tallbot could. So, did Universal learn anything from all this. Not if their new Mummy movie is supposed to show it.

Another Van Helsing movie can be made. It just needs a better script. And have Benedict Cumberbatch as the title character.

ah yes, the early 2000s. The golden age of CGI overuse and poor story telling. What a time to be alive.

"12 years and you dont know what it does?" "Of course I know what it does, I just dont know what its for." a true inventor, just invents shit and hopes its true purpose comes to light afterwards.

Van Helsing was a fun movie. Still enjoy watching it.

Eh, I loved it. I can handle the pace just fine. The only thing about the movie I don't like is the DVD for it when I go to play it in my original Xbox, as it automatically loads a demo for the movie's game _before_ asking me if I want to play it or not.

i kinda like this movie :) its pretty funny :) its one of my many guilty pleasures...alongside beowulf (the christopher lambert one)...hey FILMBRAIN...ever thought of doing Beowulf ??

I consider myself a fan of this movie. I also tremendously like that dramatic zoom-in on that nonchalant cat while you're screaming your heart out. Keep doing what you're doing.

This movie can be kinda enjoyable to watch as a spectacle.

The cat was a nice touch :D

*spoiler alert* My biggest question is, in the end when Dracula realized that Van Helsing is turning into a werewolf (i.e. the only thing capable of killing him), why didn't he just fly away?! Literally all he had to fly away and let his children do their thing...

Definitely one of my favorites of yours Matthew! Brings back memories of watching this with family n friends on Halloween.

I took my mom to this for her birthday and she hasn't quite forgiven me since...

Wait, Kate Bekensel as a badass in a vampire movie? What a suprise! Also, a Vampire hunter called Gabrial? Was the writer playing Castlevania?

Love this review and your work in general! :) Though I will shamelessly admit that I'm a big Stephen Sommers fan, and wish he would get more work these days. I really get the feeling watching his films (and his interviews) that he's a big kid at heart whose just having fun bringing his wildest ideas to the screen, and there's actually something sort-of admirable about that. Even his worst films are usually at the very least entertaining and fun to watch, and I view "Van Helsing" in much the same light. It's technically a bad movie... but it's "fun-bad." Sure, it's frequently a complete mess and it's too over-excessive at times, but the jokes usually land well, the set-pieces are imaginative even when they don't obey the laws of logic or physics, and I really like Hugh Jackman in the lead. It's an ultimate "guilty pleasure" film for me. I watch it (alongside the "Mummy" movies and "Deep Rising") almost every year in the lead-up to Halloween, alongside other goofy "horror/comedy/adventure" films like "Sleepy Hollow." (Though I set aside Halloween day to watch actual good horror flicks, lol.) It's a shame Sommers' last film "Odd Thomas" film didn't get the theatrical release it was supposed to, because it was pretty darned good.

Am I the only person who prefers the Hammer Horror films over Universal Horror?

I always considered this movie to be somebody's sad attempt at trying to create a "Castlevania" movie, but since they clearly couldn't get the rights to the name and characters they just morphed it into this bullshit excuse for a Universal monster movie reboot/homage. It would certainly explain why they felt the need to turn elderly old Van Helsing into motherfuckin' Simon Belmont! :/

This movie is actually a guilty pleasure for me. Aside from the novelty of having so many monster creatures in one movie the movie does try to make the creatures similar to the books. Best portrayed by the Frankenstein monster being brought back to his roots of gaining his knowledge via the bible. Van Helsing being turned into a bad ass is the biggest change from the source material. I understand not wanting to do the old man version from the book but they could have kept him being knowledgeable and simply made him young. It would helped with the whole castle mystery angle and made Van Helsing a more interesting hero if he used brains instead of muscle.

Universal is still trying to push this all-monster cinematic universe on us huh?

This is honestly not a good movie but it's a guilty pleasure. There are good actors in this mess but they get nothing to work with. I ❤ Kate Beckinsale

I watch this film every Halloween, as it's a MASSIVE guilty pleasure of mine! It's so full of itself and how dramatic it thinks it is, which means I can't help but laugh at it every time. This is a perfect movie to riff on with your friends during a Halloween movie marathon!

They should remake this movie except Van Helsing uses fidget spinners to fight monsters

We all know that Van Helsing is really Logan in disguise, he just grew his hair out bub and grew out his chops into a full beard.

There's just something about Matthew yelling "Absinthe" that gets to me.

I thought that the film wasn’t that bad.

This is my guilty pleasure movie. I know it's awful, but I love it, absolutely love it. I even have the cartoon prequel. And it's way better than Underworld.

I always took it as the film was intended to be clearly derivative, as the original films had been redone dozens of times. It was like a roller coaster, you know the entire run but you still enjoy the ride

A bit harsh... It's an enjoyable movie, not to be taken seriously! Sure the effects are not the best, but it's not that bothersome. The creatures are fun to watch. Wasn't expecting any Coppola or Kurosawa movie when I watched it the first time but I wasn't disappointed :)

Wait wait wait, they went south, towards the carpathians and Bulgaria, yet somehow ended up Northwest to Czechia? Keep in mind you have to go through Hungary (Home of Bathory[not the band]) to get there. At least they didn't add another character there

The whole mirror thing is one of many things about Hollywood that pisses me off. They didn't have to cgi the reflectionless vampires, all the needed to do was to build a much larger set and split in two with a wall with a hole where the mirror is supposed to be and then just arrange replica set pieces on the other side of the set. Then they just need Kate Beckinsale do the dancing all alone on the opposite side and then do the dancing with Richard on the other side and then just splice them together.

Things that would have been important to set up the story first: - The father gradually piecing together the way to get to Dracula before he was mysteriously taken. - What life was like for Anna and her brother when their father disappeared. How did they cope? What did they do? - How was Doctor Frankenstein found and convinced to work for Dracula? - How did Dracula learn the monster could give his children life in the first place? Imagine if our first introduction to Van Helsing was him entering the room, only to be told that he must once again atone for his sins and he would now be shipped off to Romania with "Carl to watch over him". Killing Marishka could have been our introduction to him in action and the plot with him, Anna and Carl carried on from there.

Is a good movie

I always thought the cheesy b-movie feel was what Sommers was going for on purpose. I know the movie is bad, but I still like it somehow. Worse than The Mummy, better than that Underworld shit. Edit: Refreshing the page to see my comment...aaand everything has already been ninja-posted by others. Brilliant. ;)

The movie needs Abbott and Costello

This was very enjoyable to watch as Van Helsing is pretty much the definition of a guilty pleasure for me-- I know it's horrible but find it endlessly amusing and it's my go to "I wanna rewatch something but don't know what" movie. A lot of this is due to the fact that I have this teory about how Anna's character was thrown in at the last minute after a studio executive (or something like that) sat in on a script reading and went "...this is just a bit too gay, could you perhaps put a chick in there?"

Well the movie and the book was based about the Vlad the impaler known as The Dracula

19:29 DAT cat

I think you may have been expecting a bit too much from this movie I think it's supposed to be a dumb but fun popcorn monster film and for that I think it serves its purpose well.

What are your thoughts about Van Helsing: The London Assignment?

It is so weird that here in New Zealand everyone I have ever talked to loves this movie and thinks It is really good and when I was a Kid everyone in New Zealand thought this movie was great yet when I went online Americans and lots of movie reviews and rotten tomatoes talk about how this movie is bad and is not considered a good movie and I tell People in New Zealand that and they are really surprised and sometimes don't believe Me and they all thought the movie was really good and have never meet anyone who didn't like it I told One Person about how one person online thought Van Helsing was a boring Character and he said anyone who thinks that is a idiot and that Van Helsing was a Awesome Character

I saw this in theaters on opening weekend. It wasn't just a bad movie, it was poorly made. During a close up with Kate and Hugh the boom drops into full view. It had several other technical issues, but it was a long time ago and if really rather forget. Why am I watching this....

I remember seeing this movie once as a kid. It felt actually pretty decent at the time but im pretty certain it hasnt aged well.

I want a GOOD movie with this Uberwald aesthetic, dammit!

Hey Ed Wood- you're no longer the worst director.

As long as you understand this movie was just a fun popcorn flick than you'll enjoy it, it's not meant to be taken seriously

When he says the movie ripped of Fellowship of the ring, what part was he taking about? I’m not disputing it, I just want to know what part.

21:19 Me (A Persona fan); There are some good PS2 cutscenes

I hated this movie so much and as a Universal fan I was so excited for it. :(

I kinda like this movie. The idea is pretty awesome, & I know I've been inspired by it with my writing, as shitty as my writing is. Overall it's (In my opinion) campy & fun, kinda like the Universal, & Hammer films.

So why didn't the Valerious siblings just have more children?

Dear Film Brain, Just a small thing; It is not called "werewolfism" or however you pronounce it. It is called Lycanthropy.

I respect your opinion, but to me, I still enjoy it. Dumb, but yet fun.

You should really consider dumping " Projector " and going back to Bad movie beatdown" You have so many films we'd all love to see you review

I Have a Crush on Kate. Beckinsale

The only good thing in this movie is werewolves. This is how they should look in every werewolf movie. Also, naming a werewolf character Wilkan (or however it's spelled according to this movie, probably Velkan or something) is like naming him Wolfgang -not only a spoiler, but also really stupid :P

Something I don't understand: Since when did Viktor Frankenstein have a moral compass? Didn't both the book and most of the movies bar the Mel Brooks one make it clear that he's the monster of the story moreso than his creation? Pretty sure a real reason he'd oppose Dracula was because the latter wasn't giving him a big enough paycheck to do what he loves the most anyway Also, if I want to watch a vampire acting up the wall, I'll settle with Patrick Seitz in JoJo: Phantom Blood, thank you

This is a great review. So much fun and leg-pulling. None of the awkward speech patterns, luuurrrrveeee.

Why did Dracula's babies turn into water balloons full of diarrhea? Why didn't they just fall?

Why does this movie think that the favourite drink of Transylvanian people is Absinthe? I was born in Transylvania, we have strong alcoholic beverage, but it isn't Absinthe.

I enjoy this movie!

This film was entertaining but it was Plagued by terrible Script

Loved Hugh Jackman mostly as Wolverine.

21:18 the funny thing is there is a helsing game on the playstation 2

I hated the movie back when it came out and I haven't mellowed on it one bit. What I hate it for is the huge missed opportunity of having this big monster mash but doing so little with it other than some bog-standard, forgettable Hollywood action blockbuster movie. None of the creatures and characters in it are done justice, the action is laughably inept, the plot is annoyingly dumb and the pacing is all over the place. Seriously, the Monster Squad movie from the 80s did what this movie tried to do much better, and that was an action-comedy kids flick.

Thank god you noticed the ghost furniture too! 😂😂😂 This really was aweful.

Individual elements yeah. The castle near the end, huge fucking physical model. It even had small window lights.

in this film they pronounce it draculea which is historically accurate

That gobot Frankenstein though.

You should now that the werewolf curse isn’t called werewolfism, it’s lycanthropy.

I really liked the concept of this movie