Octoberween X. We’re all feeling very old and learned, looking back on reviews we posted and opinions we had a decade ago and wondering why we had them. As I scroll through the Rooster Illusion backlog and time and memory dreg up ponderous questions about this and that, one in particular confounds me: how, in all the years we kept this blog active—and then in all the years that followed when we just did Halloween stuff—how did we “arbiters of taste” never review the 2004 Hugh Jackman-starring Van Helsing movie? Sarah, really? You never hit this one?

Van Helsing (2004)

The Plot: Globe-trotting late-Victorian monster hunter Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) must confront the evil vampire Count Dracula (Richard Roxburgh), who has a convoluted plan—involving werewolves and Frankenstein’s monster, no less—to bring about an apocalyptically bad time for humanity. Armed only with his wits, dashing good looks, an improbable arsenal of showy weaponry, and sidekicks played by Kate Beckinsale and David Wenham, Van Helsing takes the fight to Transylvania and must save the day before time runs out. This whole thing ends in a truly insane plot twist that I shall not give away here. It’s safe to say Hugh Jackman’s interpretation of the role differs slightly from Peter Cushing’s.

I missed Van Helsing in theaters, but I do have a vague memory of watching a rented DVD (maybe VHS, but probably DVD) in the months that followed. I was in sixth or seventh grade. My actual opinion of the movie at the time eludes recollection, but what I do recall is a distinct sense of being personally wronged by the film. You see, at the ripe old age of 12-ish, I became deeply offended by Van Helsing’s use of a rapid-fire crossbow as one of his instruments of righteous destruction. What offended me was not so much the technological impossibility of this device, but the fact that the filmmakers had stolen this idea from me. I had thought of this weapon all on my own and I thought it was, to borrow a colloquial phrase, totally wizard. How had I, an assuming 12-ish-year-old in the northern boonies, fallen prey to Hollywood plagiarism?

Someone, possibly Rooster Illusion’s dear old editor-in-chief, soon pointed out that I was an idiot and that it is in fact possible that the writers and designers working on Van Helsing had this thought independent of my divine creativity. Time will tell. Time and the American courts system, if I have my way.

After nearly 20 years I finally returned to the scene of the crime and re-watched Van Helsing for the first time since I was a preteen. I’ve grown as a viewer, I’m happy to say, and I now very, very rarely take personal offence from films. It’s unusual that I’m being directly targeted by a filmmaker or studio, and I know that now. Adopting this more mature outlook, I am happy to say that Van Helsing totally rips. It’s just a bangin’ good time.

Now, to be clear, 2004’s Van Helsing is not a good movie, really. It’s a bad movie, but it’s a great movie, if you follow. Stephen Sommers, who also directed the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies, the 1994 live-action Jungle Book, and the eminently watchable Anton Yelchin-starrer Odd Thomas, and produced The Scorpion King and all three of its straight-to-video sequels, approaches Van Helsing with his typical verve for what makes a bad blockbuster good. Watching it I was struck by how much better bad movies were 20 years ago, by and large. A bad blockbuster today is just dull—another Marvel movie churned out by a chatbot with no artistry and nothing to offer. But Van Helsing was made by actual humans, not by a studio committee or a computer, and those humans made some insane choices. Did those choices pay off? Not all of them, but there’s something so admirable and enjoyable about watching a movie that actually tries something.

A really good illustrator of this point is the CGI. Van Helsing has way too much CGI, but that meant something different in 2004 than it does now. “Way too much CGI” now means that Paul Rudd or Brie Larson or whoever’s up next didn’t get to act in the same room as their costars. Back then it meant that someone had a crazy idea for a vampire that they couldn’t pull off with makeup. And yes, as true now as it was then, they should have just done the makeup, but at least they were trying something new. They used the tech to explore new ideas, not because it was there and it was easy. As an added bonus, Van Helsing boasts at least two—maybe more—genuinely excellent action set pieces.

To its credit, Van Helsing was obviously made by someone who loved the classic Universal Studios monster movies, even if he was putting a mid-2000s coat of paint on them. At its core, this movie has the basic building blocks of some of the great monster mash-up movies from the ’40s, like House of Dracula and the truly wonderful Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (which today would surely be a “vs.” rather than a “meets”—there was something very orderly and cordial about the get-together back then).

Roger Ebert opened his glowing 3/4-star review of Van Helsing with a quote from the “Monster Mash”. He then says, “Strange that a movie so eager to entertain would forget to play ‘Monster Mash’ over the end credits.” When you go and read something like that, you wonder why you bother writing at all. That man knew how to review a movie.

Other than Ebert, this movie was widely panned by critics, who just did not like it, or perhaps just did not get it. Despite that, it performed very well at the box office, and for that reason alone I just cannot wrap my head around the fact that no studio exec in 2004 ordered a sequel. I am left utterly baffled that 2006 or 2007 did not yield a much worse follow-up for critics to groan at and Ebert to find redeemable qualities in. Alas, this was a one and done outing, and so you, dear reader(s), are spared from a 2000-word double feature Second Breakfast review in 2023. Happy Octoberween, y’all!