Van Helsing (2004)

Van Helsing is one of those aughts movies that is campy and silly while trying to keep a semi-straight face. Starring Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing in one of his sexiest roles ever and Kate Beckinsale as the equally sexy Anna Valerious, Van Helsing is an homage to the Universal horror movies of the ‘30s and ‘40s, which is why it can sometimes feel a bit too reliant on pastiche. It reminds me a lot of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, the steampunk/Gothic comic book movie featuring iconic literary characters like Tom Sawyer, Dorian Grey, and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde which came out a year earlier.

It’s got all the hallmarks of an aughts film: an overreliance on mediocre digital effects, an incessantly blue tinge in nearly every scene, and unabashed horniness. Is it a great movie? No. But is it a movie in which incredibly hot and incredibly horny brides of Dracula transform into gray-skinned flying bats to attack a small village and try to turn Kate Beckinsale before one of them takes an auto-crossbow to the gut from Jackman that pins her to a building’s spire? Yes. — AM