An Unfortunate Review Of Van Helsing (2004)

From The Black Phone to Barbarian, “X” to Hellraiser, 2022 has been a banger of a year for the horror and slasher genre.
And as October comes to a close I was pondering on what to review to end out the month.

I toyed with the idea of The Omen or maybe tackling some Freddie, but then I thought why bob for apples when I can bob for turds in the bucket of hot cat piss that is 2004s Van Helsing.

Willingly putting this one on of my own free will is kind of the most fiendish Halloween trick one could play on themselves, as I was purposefully subjecting myself and home furnishings to the full force of the mediocrity and awfulness gushing from the screen.And for a film with a runtime waaaaaay longer than it has any right being it felt even longer!! I swear I was decades younger before I hit play and the god awful pacing had the effect of choosing the wrong grail. Had I left a camera on myself for a reaction vid It would probably look like a time-lapse of a pumpkin decomposing over two and a half miserable hours.

Casting wise we of course have handsome mc’stubble Chops and mayor of ruggedsville Hugh jacked-man himself who is as always the bright spot in this most unholy of places, he’s clearly having fun with the role and as such is the best part of it.However even the unbridled charisma of Hugh isn’t enough to shield my long suffering retinas from whatever it is that Kate Beckinsale is doing. I get that she clearly had no love for the material and I absolutely sympathise with her but running around like a haunted porcelain doll that’s trying to hold in a poo is a little insulting.

Then there’s Richard Roxburgh who exists on a whole other plane which is somewhere between the absurd and the sublime and gives the most over the top Dracula put to celluloid, his accent is hilarious but since he’s got every inch of tangible scenery in his mouth I’ll give it a pass.Speaking of tangible the effects are baaaaad!
The green screen composites are shockingly laughable and the bobblehead brides of Dracula are a hilarious wonder to behold for starters but once the third act CGI kicks in it may as well be a ps1 cutscene from Legacy Of Kain.

Now look, it’s not all doom and gloom and I don’t enjoy totally dumping on anything that people have clearly spent time and effort with, the premise is actually pretty fun and in it’s concept Van Helsing is a great action adventure/monstor mash romp.However it’s poor pacing, terrible effects, ridiculous third act “twist” along with its mostly bad performances and torturous runtime make it a total none starter and I can’t see anyone getting much out of it unless you’re ironically watching with a bunch of beer and friends or like…..10 years old.

So that’s October done for reviews and now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to watch literally anything else to get this foul taste out of my mouth. So I’ll be giving Van Helsing one instance of “choosing poorly” out of five.

Happy Halloween and thanks for reading 🎃

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