Except for some overwrought CGI, this Halloween classic from 2004 stands up well to a rewatch.
LEFTOVER NINE
In black-&-white we see the end of a Frankenstein story. Transylvania 1887. The villagers come with torches and pitchforks (and a battering ram) to an elaborate castle. Inside, the exuberant doctor yells, “It’s alive!”
Here’s where the known backstory takes a turn: Dracula appears in the doctor’s laboratory. And another shift: Victor is a benevolent creator who wants to protect his monster. (Check my Enneagram reviews of Frankenstein characters to see why this is odd.) Dracula’s been financing this operation and now wants the monster for his own purposes. Victor refuses. While Dracula bites his neck, killing him, the monster escapes his bonds.
Villagers chase him as he carries Victor into a windmill. Fire, fueled by bottles of absinthe next to a copy of the Holy Bible, destroys the tower; the monster crashes into its pit. Dracula and his three brides, in bat form, scatter the villagers and lament that the monster is lost to them.
ONE
Cut to One Year Later in Paris.
Walking at night near Notre Dame Cathedral, a man in a leather duster kneels next to a dead woman and crosses himself. He picks up a clue, a burning cigar. In the attic space of the church, he confronts a very large Mr. Hyde. Cue an action sequence with much CGI flash. Van Helsing fights for the Knights of the Holy Order, who would prefer to save Dr. Jekyll. Of course, that isn’t possible. Hyde falls, transforming back to Jekyll as he hits the courtyard pavers and dies. From the roof, Van Helsing crosses himself, saying, “Requiescat in pace.”
TWO
Van Helsing rides into Vatican City. We learn that he was discovered on the church steps, a broken man with no memory. The Order is a secret society operating in the bowels of the city. (It’s a kind of turn-of-the-century gadget laboratory, like James Bond’s Q section.) Cardinal Jinette, the man in charge, tasks Van Helsing: a Transylvanian knight, 450 years ago, promised God that his family would never rest nor enter heaven until they vanquished Dracula from their land. Today, only the son and daughter are left after the father disappeared a year ago. If they all die, nine generations will “never enter the gates of St. Peter”.
THREE
A scrap of paper left by the knight, with an insignia that matches Van Helsing’s ring, is the only clue the Cardinal can offer.
FOUR
The lab’s odd inventor, a friar named Carl, outfits Van Helsing with garlic, a silver stake, a crucifix, etc. Although Carl protests — “I’m not a field man” — Van Helsing insists he come along.
Cut to the Transylvanian forest and a man (Velkan, the brother) tied to a post. A werewolf attacks but misses the bait as Velkan jumps to a rope overhead. His team is supposed to pull him up to safety, but the rope is stuck.
In a slowmo turn, Anna, the sister, draws her sword. Running in her corset and high-heeled boots, Anna charges the werewolf, driving him into the pit trap. (Honestly, she’s awesome. Kate Beckinsale embraces the outrageous costume and makes it fabulous.)
The mishaps continue, though. Velkan drops his gun with the silver bullets and the werewolf escapes its cage, chasing Anna through the forest. She stops at a cliff’s edge with a river far below. As the werewolf flies at her, Velkan knocks her aside, shoots the werewolf, and goes over the edge with it. The water is still, Velkan gone. Anna, the only family member left alive, says, “God, help us.”
Cut to Van Helsing and Carl traveling (in a surprisingly long sequence) to a remote Transylvanian village. They meet Anna and fight the three brides. (Anna has some extreme superhero moves, but we also see that she’s been training her whole life to attack vampires and survive. It’s unrealistic, but it’s also justified.) Van Helsing’s crossbow bolts do no lasting damage to the brides until Carl realizes the bolts should be dipped in holy water. He kills one of the brides just as the other two have Anna cornered. They shriek and fly away. Anna, recognizing Van Helsing by reputation, invites him for a drink.
Dracula rises from his frozen coffin. He mourns the loss of one bride with the remaining two. In the background we see a shadow of a chained werewolf. Dracula intends to go to Castle Frankenstein and “try again”, which refers to something the brides fear may cause them sorrow. The three vampires disappear into an icy doorway.
At Anna’s house, Van Helsing and Carl see the map painting that her father stared at for hours. This used to be Dracula’s house, but no one knows where he lives now. Anna’s ready to go after Dracula alone, but Van Helsing convinces her to wait until morning and work with him. As she offers him that drink, the two stand close, hinting at romance. Van Helsing sprays her in the face, putting her to sleep. Fade to black.
Anna wakes, striding through the house while yelling for Van Helsing. It’s dark, and Anna soon becomes cautious. A werewolf stalks her. She shoots. We see the moon go behind a cloud. When Anna turns, she runs into Velkan. He tries to tell her, “I know Dracula’s secret,” but he begins to transform. Anna weeps. The moon comes out, and Velkan yells at her, “Run!”
Van Helsing dashes in, shooting. Velkan-werewolf escapes through the window. Grabbing silver bullets from Carl, Van Helsing leaves the castle to hunt. In the village, he takes a shot at it, but Anna disrupts his arm. Angry, Van Helsing says, “He’s not your brother anymore.” Anna retorts, “They say Dracula has a cure.” Moved by Anna’s sorrow, Van Helsing agrees to help her find her brother.
Cut to Castle Frankenstein. Tubes, electricity, lightning: it’s all as Victor left it. Dracula oversees the preparations.
Anna and Van Helsing arrive outside of Castle Frankenstein. The man who lived here (Victor), a “grave robber”, died a year ago, Anna says. Her father disappeared just after that on his way to the sea. In close-up, she says, “I’ve never been to the sea. I bet it’s beautiful.” (It’s a poignant beat for a young woman who’s had no life outside of this dark and dangerous place.)
Back to Dracula. The werewolf hops about inside the tower, and then Velkan rips free from his fur. Before their first full moon, werewolves aren’t completely transformed yet, we’re told. A dead body wearing a medallion is tossed off the operating table; Velkan recognizes his father. Dracula replaces him with Velkan, strapping him to the table.
Inside the cold castle, Anna and Van Helsing find egg sacs hanging from the ceiling. The offspring are dead, and Dracula needs to bring them back to life. Crosscut with Velkan struck by lightning on the tower roof. An energy wave courses through the castle, infusing the eggs. Baby vampires, bat-like, hatch and take flight. Dracula and the two brides greet their precious darlings.
As the mamas fly with their children to the village for feeding, Van Helsing starts shooting the bats left in the castle, purposely drawing Dracula’s attention. Anna, ignored, runs upstairs for her brother.
Meanwhile, Carl, studying in Anna’s tower, sees the horde of flying bats and heads out to warn people.
Van Helsing, surprising Dracula, stabs him through the heart with a stake. “Requiescat in pace.” Unmoved, Dracula replies, “Hello, Gabriel.”
Crosscut Anna disrupting the tower’s electrical current with the vampire bats causing havoc in the village.
SWITCH
Van Helsing has no memory of Dracula, but he’s curious — almost driven — to hear what Dracula knows of him. Born 1422, Dracula was murdered forty years later.
FIVE
In the village, the bat vampires explode. When Dracula becomes distracted, Van Helsing runs for Anna so they can escape. Velkan, transformed, leaps after them.
Carl — who, after all, is only a friar — gets a girl.
Moved by his failure to recreate Victor’s ability to generate life, Dracula sends his brides and Velkan-werewolf to kill Van Helsing and Anna.
Hearing of Van Helsing’s attempt, Anna chastises him. “No one knows how to kill Dracula.” They share a companionable moment, drinking absinthe in the ruins of Frankenstein’s windmill. The floor collapses and they fall.
Cut to the snowy castle and Carl asleep on the tower couch. The maid sleeps with him. When he sort of leaps in surprise and enjoyment, he leans against a wall sconce. The map painting he’s been studying rotates, revealing a new picture on the reverse side. It has instructions in an old text, and then the image of two knights fighting animates. The figures throw off their armor, revealing one as a werewolf and one as a vampire bat. Carl falls over backwards.
The area under the windmill is dark. Anna and Van Helsing discover a pile of gnawed bones and a copy of the Holy Bible. The monster comes out of the shadows, knocking Van Helsing aside. Anna, terrified, recognizes him. Afraid they’ll hurt him (as others have), the monster attacks first. Van Helsing darts him, but then he stops Anna from shooting him. The monster warns them, “I am the key to my father’s machine.” Dracula cannot give his offspring lasting life without using the monster. When Anna again tries to shoot it, Van Helsing says, “Evil does not rule it, so I cannot kill it.” He wonders if perhaps this creature can help them kill Dracula. However, they’re discovered by Velkan-werewolf. Dracula will now come for him unless Van Helsing can get him to Rome.
Cue a carriage, transporting the monster and Carl, his terrified co-passenger, overland from Transylvania. In Hungary, Van Helsing, driving, senses danger. The bat-brides are after him. When the team of horses jumps a broken bridge, the carriage doesn’t make it, falling into the ravine. One of the brides follows the carriage down, trying to save the monster. He’s not in there, though. Van Helsing was the decoy. He jumps to Anna’s carriage as the empty one explodes, killing the bride. Just as they smile about their success, though, Velkan-werewolf attacks. The carriage, destroyed, crashes.
Anna finds the injured Velkan, transformed back to himself. She holds him as he dies. Angry, she attacks Van Helsing, except she sees that he’s been bitten. As she backs away, the last remaining bride grabs her and flies off. Van Helsing, Carl, and the monster are left behind in Budapest. The bride appears, offering a trade: the monster for Anna at a Halloween masquerade ball. When the bride flies away, Van Helsing winces. His companions realize he’s been bitten. Van Helsing stuns the monster and hides him in a crypt. Carl establishes that Van Helsing has 48 hours before he becomes a permanent werewolf.
The masquerade ball, as eerie as we expected, has circus acts entertaining the guests. Anna, in gown and mask, dances with Dracula. They kiss, which awakens her from her trance. While he prepares to bite her and make her one of his brides, Van Helsing intercepts the ceiling trapeze act and flies in, rescuing her. They haven’t won, though: the monster, chained, is carried in on a pallet. He starts praying Psalm 23.
Every guest at the ball is a vampire, and they all start chasing Van Helsing and Anna. As they and Carl escape through a window, Carl’s solar bomb explodes, dousing the entire castle with a super light. In the moat they’re forced to watch Dracula’s minions row away with the monster. Van Helsing vows to free him, but Carl tells him Rome forbids it. Angry, Van Helsing attacks Carl. His eyes glow with a werewolf glint, but he recovers himself. (Meanwhile, the three actors tread water in a dark pool for a loooong time, lol. The reality of the shot upstages any character emotion.)
In the snowy castle, our trio finds all the laboratory equipment removed. Carl, taking them to the tower to show them what he’s discovered, thinks he can find Dracula’s missing lair. Dracula is actually the son of the original knight, Anna’s ancestor. He was killed by “the Left Hand of God”. When he died, he made a covenant with the devil. Even then, though, the knight couldn’t kill his own son. He banished Dracula to an icy castle through a mysterious doorway. Where is it?
(Wow, that was a huge dump of exposition. Carl dances about, showing visual clues to accompany his findings, but yikes. My brain hurts.)
SIX
Based on Carl’s explanation, Van Helsing realizes how to find the doorway. The map painting has a missing piece in the bottom corner. Without it, the text is unfinished. From his pocket, Van Helsing presents the remnant he received in Rome, a perfect completion to the puzzle.
SEVEN
The painting becomes a mirror. They realize it’s a doorway and step through to Dracula’s snowy realm, a horrific, rime-coated castle on an isolated spire.
EIGHT
Grabbing the other two, Van Helsing leaps up the doorway and over into the courtyard. His werewolf powers grow stronger as the deadline counts down. The camera pans up to the ceiling, revealing thousands of egg sacs.
Through a grate, they see the monster, encased in an ice block except for his head, as he’s raised toward the tower. He tells Van Helsing that Dracula has a cure. Why does he have a cure? Carl realizes what the animated drawing told him: only a werewolf can kill Dracula. When the bell tolls midnight and Van Helsing turns into a werewolf, he’ll have the countdown on the clock before he becomes a permanent beast. If he fails to change back in time . . . Van Helsing gives Carl a silver stake. Anna and Van Helsing kiss before she runs to join Carl in his quest for the cure.
Action ensues. Van Helsing rescues Frankenstein’s monster, but not before the machine jolts the egg sacs to life. The released monster saves Anna from the last bride. As the clock begins to chime, Van Helsing transforms, much to Dracula’s surprise. Monologuing and creature battle commences.
Dracula reveals that Van Helsing is the Left Hand of God. Also, he wants his signet ring back.
The werewolf rips out the bat’s throat. Dracula is dead.
Anna races in with the cure, but the werewolf attacks her. We’re not sure what happens until he turns, revealing the hypodermic stuck in his gut. The plan to save Van Helsing is successful, but Anna is dead. As he changes back to human, Van Helsing mourns.
NINE
Crossfade to a meadow overlooking the ocean. Carl intones a blessing while Van Helsing lights Anna’s pyre. Out to sea, the monster on a raft rows away. In grief, Van Helsing bows his head at the bonfire. Something makes him look up, though. The clouds at sunset part. An image of Anna reunited with her family glows with a piercing light. She smiles down at him before the sun fades. A sorrowful Van Helsing finds peace. He and Carl ride away.
CRITICAL NOTES
A very tidy structure, although the story is weighed down by a lot of exposition and the CGI extravaganza. I’m happy — and not too surprised — to find a successful Enneagram here. The minute I saw the scrap of paper I knew we had a Three. I really love when a beat is so strong and clear. I remembered we would see the scrap again at a key moment, and correctly anticipated this would become a beautiful Six mirror.
It’s that easy to lock down a structure. Well done.
The biggest accomplishment for me was the lack of romance. Yes, Anna and Van Helsing kiss in a climactic scene, but that’s not the focus of this story. Anna has one goal: save her family. She doesn’t care if she dies and she’s not considering a life past her quest to kill Dracula. She achieves her objective. It’s a daring (and successful) ending for a mainstream Hollywood film.
At the Two Anna’s dilemma is presented; at the Eight it’s resolved. We have subplots: the Frankenstein monster’s fate, some information about Van Helsing’s forgotten past, and all of the rules about Dracula and his offspring. However, Dracula must die for Anna to achieve heaven for her family. We have an elaborate CG battle between the werewolf and the bat, but Anna has already met her goal — Dracula is dead — when she rushes in to cure Van Helsing. To craft the Eight around Anna is brilliant storytelling. It would be easy to get distracted by the creature fight and think that it should be the climax; instead the showrunners keep it in service to Anna’s fate. The Eight is packed with action, yet the beat ends with Anna dead and at peace. The movie has convinced me that this ending is sad but not tragic. What an achievement! That’s what makes this film a worthy rewatch.
I’m still struck by Anna’s comment about having never seen the beautiful sea. It’s a very strong pause in the movie. I think they were trying for an Act One ending. With the oceanside finale — Anna’s pyre — they wrap up a wonderful Act Three juxtaposition. Sadly, though, nothing stands out as an Act Two ending. Timing-wise, Anna’s capture by the bride after the carriage chase seems the proper place. Budapest has a river, after all. The Danube! I wish the showrunners had taken advantage of that location and given Anna another moment to reflect on a young woman’s prospects lost in the pursuit of Dracula. Anna eventually reaches the sea, but only after she’s dead. It’s incredibly poignant. That beautiful place that she dreamed about is, for her, literally heaven.
They had a Three Act structure that wasn’t complete, unfortunately. However, they landed some other, unexpected surprises in an action genre picture. There’s much here to enjoy. Happy Halloween, everybody!