The scene with the Friar in the lab is an homage to all the James Bond movies with 007 and Q's lab. Hugh Jackman (Van Helsing) is rumored to be chosen as the next Bond after Pierce Brosnan.

The left hand of God is a synonym for the Holy Spirit. Submitted by Christoph Galuschka

The beginning of this movie is an homage to the ending of the original Frankenstein, where the Monster carries the dead doctor into a windmill which is then burned down around him by irate villagers.

In real life, Richard Roxburgh (who played Dracula) was engaged to one of his three vampire brides at the time of filming, Italian actress Silvia Colloca. They've since got married.

When Van Helsing is fighting Dracula towards the end as a werewolf, he stops to get out his claws. This is an obvious reference to Wolverine, whom Hugh Jackman played in both "X-Men" movies.

In the scene with the antidote, when they turn around and one of the vampire brides is hanging upside down behind them, her jaw splits open down the middle, showing a very large, three-sided "mouth". This is exactly the way the 'Reapers' from Blade 2 look, though less pronounced.

On two occasions during the film Frankenstein's Monster is referred to as "Frankenstein." This is a common error by moviegoers. The monster itself has no name - Frankenstein is his creator, Dr. Victor von Frankenstein.

At the beginning of the Vatican scene, choral chant is briefly heard in the background. It is identical to what you hear when you click on a church in the PC game "Warcraft II: The Tides of War" (1996).

The shot of Frankenstein's monster looking back at the pyre on the cliff is a reference to the 1994 version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, where there's a very similar shot of Captain Walton looking back at the monster standing next to Frankenstein's pyre.

Van Helsing: The Musical? Not so far fetched when you consider that Hugh Jackman was and is a musical theatre actor, currently doing "Boy From Oz" on Broadway until Sept 2004. Shuler Hensley (Frankenstein's Monster) is also a musical theatre actor, and both of them were in the UK cast of "Oklahoma" at the same time, Hugh as Curly and Shuler as Jud Fry. Hugh said in a recent Entertainment Weekly that they'd joke about doing VH: The Musical and that "We'd sing show tunes," during the production of the movie. To top it all, Alun Armstrong, who plays the Cardinal, also is a well-known musical theatre actor who, among his many roles, has played Thénardier in Les Misérables.

Kate Beckinsale said in interviews that the boots worn by her character Anna took 25-30 minutes to put on.

The poem the Friar reads from the painting, "Even a man who is pure at heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolf bane blooms and the moon is shining bright" is a direct quote from the original Wolfman, it is spoken several times throughout the original classic.

During filming, Hugh Jackman accidentally broke an extra's hand.