Van Helsing

Van Helsing is a 2004 gothic action horror film written and directed by Stephen Sommers. It stars Hugh Jackman as monster hunter Van Helsing and Kate Beckinsale as Anna Valerious. Van Helsing is both an homage and tribute to the Universal Horror Monster films from the 1930s and 1940s (also produced by Universal Pictures which were in turn partially based on novels by Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley), of which Sommers is a fan. The eponymous character was inspired by the Dutch vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing from Irish author Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. Distributed by Universal Pictures, the film includes a number of monsters such as Count Dracula (and other vampires), Frankenstein's monster, Duergar, Mr. Hyde and werewolves in a way similar to the multi-monster movies that Universal produced in the 1940s, such as Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula. The film received generally negative reviews but grossed $300.2 million worldwide against a budget of $160–170 million. Plot In 1887 Transylvania, Doctor Victor Frankenstein, aided by his assistant Igor and Count Dracula, creates a monster. Dracula kills Frankenstein when he refuses to go along with the vampire's designs for the creature as Igor, revealed to be under Dracula's pay, watches impassively. As an angry mob storms the Castle, the monster flees to a windmill with Frankenstein's body. The mob burns down the windmill, seemingly killing the monster. A year later, monster hunter Gabriel Van Helsing travels to Notre-Dame de Paris and kills Dr. Jekyll after a brawl with Mr. Hyde. Helsing pursues evil on behalf of the Holy Order, which has protected mankind "from time immemorial". Van Helsing, who remembers nothing before he was found crawling up the steps of a church nearly dead, hopes to earn pardon for his forgotten sins and regain his memory. At the Order's Vatican City headquarters, Van Helsing is tasked with travelling to Transylvania, destroying Dracula and protecting Anna and Velkan Valerious, the last of an ancient Romanian family. Their ancestor vowed that his descendants would kill Dracula or spend eternity in Purgatory. In Transylvania, Anna and Velkan attempt to kill a werewolf controlled by Dracula, but it falls with Velkan into a deep river gorge, managing to bite him in the process.