Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!
Reasons That Van Helsing Is a Gawd-Awful Movie
  1. It throws any type of historical accuracy out the window.  The setting jumps around a bit, but only by place and just several years time difference.  To show these setting changes, they are presented prior to every scene change like this: LONDON: 1882.  Not unusual, most movies with setting changes do similar things.  However, why would there be electric street lights in Paris prior to 1900?  That's right.. there wouldn't be any, dipshits--THINK ABOUT IT!  Furthermore, in the Catholic Order's secret lair, the priests show Van Helsing the family that he is supposed to save, and the location of Transylvania, et. cetera, ON A SLIDE PROJECTOR!  HELLOOOOO?!?!? ANYBODY HOME!?!  Good idea, morons... make a movie in a setting that predates major electrical advancements, then place them throughout the movie.
  2. It steals all of the concepts from other, much better written movies.  This movie has Dracula, Dr. Frankenstein, Frankenstein, Igor, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hide, werewolves, secret, Bond-style headquarters where people spend their lives tinkering away to make more powerful weapons for Van Helsing, even Oompa-fucking-Loompas.  All of these characters/concepts in their own right (and their own movies), are pretty cool; however, the writers of this movie stole these concepts from other movies, which is pretty lame in general, but then furthers on this pathetic ideal by changing their stories all around. 

    I mean, one would think Bram Stoker explained Dracula rather sufficiently: he had fought valiently in the Crusades, then returned home to find his fiance killed.  He got pissed off, blamed God, stabbed a religious figurine, which bled; then to spite God, he drank the blood.  God got pissed and as punishment, made him a vampire, an undead, immortal being who craves blood and can never see the light of day.  He bites people, and they become vampires too.  Likes: blood, especially of virgins, coffins, creepy darkened castles.  Dislikes: garlic, crucifixes, sunlight, steaks in the heart.  Then along comes the Van Helsing writers.  "HMMM!  Let's steal this character, then fuck the story all up.  Let's make him this dude who was murdered, but in order to have immortality, he made a pact with the devil.  He lives in an magical icy palace, has three hot, vampire wives and makes dead babies with them.  He needs Dr. Frankenstein's machine to bring the dead babies to life (more on him later).  The people of Transylvania don't know how to kill him.  The audience is led to think the characters have amnesia or something.  Oh no, they tried the usual stuff: garlic, steaks in the heart, et. cetera, but the V.H. writers just fucked with the story: now, only a werewolf can kill him.  Van Helsing becomes a werewolf and we find out just before he kills him that... omigawsh! Van Helsing was the one who murdered him the first time!" (whoops! just ruined the surprise plot twist) But seriously, isn't it time that we come up with our own characters instead of fucking with Dracula. More movies have fucked with the story of Dracula more than any other character. He was written as an exact character, but stupid movies like VH and Dracula 2000 (don't even get me started with that one) have turned him more into an ambiguous archetype. LEAVE DRACULA ALONE... MAKE UP YOUR OWN DAMN CHARACTERS!

    I also believe that Mary Shelley sufficently wrote about Frankenstein; however, what once was a man made of sewn together corpses, and brought to life by a mad scientist, who scared people and went into hiding, has become, thanks to the moronic writers of Van Helsing, the "key" of Dr. Frankenstein's machine, who is needed so that Dracula (who has now become Dr. Frankenstein's wealthy benefactor of yore) can bring dead vampire babies to life. WHoOpp-DeE-FucKiN-DoO. And Mary Shelley is rolling over in her grave.

    Also, Igor is Dracula's manservant and Harker is nowhere to be seen. Instead, halfway through the movie these lil Oompa-Loompas are seen prancing all over the old-once-was-Dr. Frankenstein's-but-is-now-taken-over-by-Dracula-to-bring-to-life-his-dead-babies castle. There is no explanation where they came from, or what they do really. The audience is just told that they are bad. But I think the Oompa-Loompa things are one of the better, plagerized parts of the movie! They ride around in little hand carts and work in the factory. However, I still think the family of Roald Dahl are owed an apology, if not monetary compensation.

    Now, after I left the theatre (surprisingly, I sat through the movie... it was too much fun to make fun of), I wondered to myself "Why in the hell would someone make a movie this terrible."  While researching for this article, I found my answer: it's not meant to be a movie, it's meant to be a marketing tool that unifies several other products.  First, there's the obvious: the Van Helsing video game and other movie merchandise, which is not uncommon.  Then, there's also "The Monster Legacy Collection: the films that inspired Van Helsing" a sixty-dollar box set of the good, original horror movies (Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman) which V. H. combined, raped, and attempted to destroy, but rereleased and sold under the Van Helsing name.  But Universal is also releasing a new television show which will be on NBC: Transylvania and Van Helsing: The London Assignment, an animated movie about Van Helsing ... you guessed it, IN LONDON, and finally, Fortress Dracula, a new theme attraction at Universal Studios.  Gawsh... you think they would let a terrible movie like that just rest.

    Overall, for an action flick, I give it two enthusiastic middle fingers up; however, as a comedy... it's fantastic movie, a wonderful movie to go see and make sarcastic comments throughout.