Intermission: 'Van Helsing' lacks basic tenets of horror film genre

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.

Fans of big-budget, action-packed, special-effects-driven blockbusters will find a lot to like in Stephen Sommers' new film, "Van Helsing." But while the film features Dracula and his minions Dr. Frankenstein, his assistant Igor and the monster, assorted werewolves and even a cameo from Mr. Hyde (and an even briefer appearance by his alter-ego, Dr. Jekyll) fans of real horror films will likely be disappointed. Writer/director Sommers, who honed his bombastic style with another classic horror character in his two recent "Mummy" films (a third is due this year), has crowded his film with nonstop action and more special effects than any movie in recent memory. What he accomplishes is technically state-of-the-art. What he misses is the heart and soul of his story and characters.

This isn't to say "Van Helsing" isn't entertaining, but rather that it's lacking some of the basic tenets of a horror film. Most importantly, a horror film should be scary, and while this movie is a razzle-dazzle, jaw-dropping visual experience, scary it's not. Thrilling at times, yes. Scary, no. It's more like a car-chase movie than gothic horror.

Sommers says that he loved the horror pictures from Universal Studios when he was a kid and these have inspired his work as a director. Universal released a few monster pairings starting with 1943's "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman," followed by "House of Frankenstein" and "House of Dracula," both of which threw in the Wolfman.

Sommers, however, has crowded this film with too many villains and heroes as to be distracting. He's also taken the characters so far afield from their original personas in film, not to mention the classic novels that brought them to life in the first place that one wonders if he really absorbed much from the classics he professes to having been so influential.

In Bram Stoker's "Dracula," the character Dr. Abraham Van Helsing was brought in to investigate a mysterious illness. He eventually becomes Dracula's nemesis. Here, he is named Gabriel (for reasons that become apparent late in the too-long film), and he's more a combination of Indiana Jones and a comic-book super hero than his namesake from the book.

There's also a bit of James Bond thrown in for good measure. Van Helsing works for a super-secret organization called The Order, which is run by the Vatican. It's sort of a holy version of Her Majesty's Secret Service. They dispatch Bond, er I mean Van Helsing, around the world to thwart goblins, ghouls and unholy creatures of all types. After doing in Mr. Hyde, Van Helsing gets his latest assignment: go to Transylvania and track down Count Dracula. Before leaving, he gets his stash of high-tech (for the 1860s, anyway) weapons much like Bond does in his films.

Upon arriving in Transylvania, he meets Anna, whose family has been hunting Dracula for 400 years. The family made a pact with God and if they don't get the Count, none of the many generations of them will be able to enter Heaven. Anna and her brother are the last of the line and soon it's just Anna. So time is running out, and 400 years of ancestors are getting a bit nervous.

Earlier in the film, we saw the alliance between Dracula and Dr. Frankenstein and already know the Count was using the good doctor and his creation, which finally came to life, for his own purpose. But only midway through do we discover what that purpose actually is.

I'll give credit to Sommers for his re-enactment of the windmill destruction scene in the original "Frankenstein."

I'll also give credit to Production Designer Allan Cameron. All of his sets are amazing. There's Dr. Frankenstein's lab, Dracula's castle and The Order's Holy Headquarters. The most amazing piece, though, is the fully realized Transylvanian village.

To try to explain the plot would be an exercise in futility. And Universal issued a statement asking that reviewers (and actually anyone who has seen the film) not give away what takes place between Van Helsing and Anna in the final 30 minutes. So, I guess I won't.

The one "surprise" about Van Helsing's past is telegraphed very early in the film and it becomes completely apparent well before Dracula explains it to him.

Let's just leave it at this: special effects, action, superheroes? Yes. Classic horror? A resounding no.

But that doesn't mean it's not a fun diversion, and I'm sure if only from the audience of pre-teens and teens who will see it repeatedly "Van Helsing" will prove to be one of the highest-grossing films of 2004. I only pray that unlike zombies, vampires and the rest of the undead, this thing doesn't come back to life with a sequel or (shudder) a franchise.