Van Helsing

(Film)
Dir: Stephen Sommers



NEILL says:

Van Helsing is a true heir to the 'classic' Hammer horror movies of the 1970s in that it is actually completely shit. I consider it a bad sign that I spent long portions of the running time mentally organising my bank account, and even longer seeing how many adverbs I could come up with for the word 'stupid'. I lost count in the end, but my top 3 favourites were: 'heroically', 'monumentally', and of course the classic 'un-fucking-believably'. The whole thing resembled nothing so much as an extended version of the cut-scenes that you get between levels on PS2 games, and had all the depth, intelligence and artistic subtlety that implies. It is a very strange thing to sit through an entire film feeling an overpowering instinct to 'press the start button and skip this shit'. I will share one choice snippet of dialogue with you, and that will tell you all you need to know about the heroic, monumental and quite un-fucking-believable stupidity of this movie. Whilst hunting down a vampire, or possibly a werewolf (I forget - I think I was running through my standing orders at the time), one character asks Van Helsing about his motivation: he has no personal or family connection to the fight against vampires (or possibly werewolves), so why does he do it? What is he looking for? And what does he reply, this nineteenth-century Vatican solider?

"I don't know... maybe some self-realisation."

I mean to say, for fucks sake.

4/10