Van Helsing

Question: In the beginning of the film, where Dracula is talking to Viktor vonFrankenstein, he slams the chest shut and begins yelling at him. Before this, Viktor was looking over his shoulder and his attention immediately snaps back to Dracula, but he then turns once more to look behind him before staring at Dracula again, can someone explain why he looks over his shoulder a second time?

Answer: During their conversation Dracula is able to move around the room without Viktor noticing it. Then Dracula is standing on top of the fireplace behind Viktor, that's why he turns his head the first time. When Dracula suddenly slams the chest Viktor is surprised to see Dracula suddenly standing in front of him so he instinctively turn his head to look at the fireplace to believe his own eyes.

Mortug

Question: When Gabriel killed Dracula 400 years ago, what turned him into a vampire? Because if he was already a vampire, obviously Gabriel didn't kill him.

Answer: After being killed - "murdered" as Dracula stated several times - by Van Helsing, Dracula made a deal with the Devil to regain his life. Carl tells his story when telling Van Helsing and Anna everything that he has learnt.

Answer: Gabriel is the true name of the character described elsewhere as the Left Hand of God, responsible for Dracula's original death. Dracula uses this to try to remind Van Helsing of their history together. The implication is that Van Helsing is actually the archangel Gabriel, credited with (among other things) announcing the pending birth of Christ to Mary his mother, Joseph his father, and Elizabeth mother of John the Baptist.

Phoenix

Question: How could Dracula's werewolf antidote work on regular werewolves? I thought it could only work the first night they became a werewolf, and it had to be before the twelfth chime of midnight? Or did I miss something?

Answer: There is a lot of confusion about Dracula's control of werewolves and the antidote. After the twelfth stroke of midnight, a werewolf is under the complete control of Dracula. This is why Velkan couldn't kill Dracula: He knew a werewolf could kill him, even tried telling this to his sister, but couldn't consciously kill Dracula. Dracula keeps the antidote as a safety measure: If any werewolf summons enough will to get out of his control, he can make them human again.

Question: If Van Helsing murdered Dracula 400 years or more ago and took his ring, how come he is still alive. Dracula is 'alive' because he is one of the undead, but what about Van Helsing?

Answer: Carl reveals that Dracula was originally killed by "the Left Hand of God." Dracula refers to Van Helsing as Gabriel. Put together, the two facts imply that Van Helsing is actually the Archangel Gabriel, responsible for informing Mary of her pregnancy with Christ among other things. So Van Helsing is not a mere human, he is also supernatural and not subject to human lifespan.

Phoenix

Question: When Velkan turned into a werewolf it was at the night of a full moon. The exact same thing happened to Van Helsing. Why is it that when Velkan was attacked by a werewolf it happened in the morning? Werewolves only appear on the night of a full moon.

Answer: In the movie it is explained that after the first full moon a person will remain a werewolf forever. They can never return to human form.

Question: If Dracula and his Brides only took 2 or 3 people a month from the village (which both the town people and Dracula commented on when Van Helsing killed a Bride), what or whom did all those other Vampires at the Masquerade Party eat?

Answer: They hunted people in Budapest (where the scene takes place), or in Budapest's surrounding areas.

Twotall

Question: When Van Helsing is freeing Frankenstein's Monster from the roof, he can't unbuckle the restraints. He says, "This is going to hurt." and then yanks on something. What exactly does he do? It just looks like he's undone the straps.

Answer: VH says 'I can't loosen the bolts' - the straps have been bolted into the monster's flesh. You can see a small blood spurt if you look carefully off to the left of the screen as he pulls the strap.

Kaite13

Question: Does anyone know why Gabriel murdered Dracula 400 years ago? Why would the right hand of God kill a human?

Answer: In Van Helsing: The video game, the backstory goes like this. Dracula and Van Helsing were both friends and knights of the Holy Order dedicated to eradicating evil. They only had to follow two rules. One. The Order did not exist. Two. They had to live a life of celibacy. Dracula, however, fell in love with a young woman. When the Order found out, they decided to banish the young woman from the city. A struggle occurred and the woman was killed. Turning on the Order, Dracula recovered her body and chose to use dark magic to bring her back to life. Van Helsing was sent to stop the ritual. Though he succeeded, a fight between Dracula and Van Helsing ensued and Van Helsing was left with no choice but to kill his former comrade. As Dracula lay dying he made a deal with the devil for eternal life. Van Helsing, wracked by guilt for what he had done, prayed to God to have the pain and suffering of what he did taken away. To spare him the torment, God answered his prayer and removed his memories.

Question: Why does Dracula do that dance that involves placing his hand on his chest and slowly spinning around while Velkan is being strapped to the device while screaming "Never"?

Answer: Dracula can hear heartbeats, as he makes clear to Van Helsing. He even states that he can almost "dance to the beat" of scared humans. He is mocking Velkan's anger and fear by dancing to the beat of his racing heart.

Question: If Van Helsing is the Left Hand of God, wouldn't he, the mighty archangel, be too powerful to be affected by a werewolf curse? And wouldn't he be able to crush Dracula without the extra powers?

Answer: He probably lost some powers and became more human (thus being affected by the curse), all of which will probably be explored in a sequel.

Xofer

Question: Do the vampire birds actually give birth to the pods, like a human female would with a baby?

Answer: It'd be more like a bird laying an egg, or given the quantity, like an insect laying eggs.

Phixius

Question: Does anybody know what reaction/comments/impressions Anne Rice had about this film?

cyborg

Chosen answer: I'm not sure if she has given any public comments about the movie, but you can go to her official homepage and contact her personally: http://www.annerice.com/ac_LeaveAMessage.htm.

Mortug

Question: When Van Helsing was on the carriage on the way to Budapest and the horses were about to go over the broken bridge, how did the horses fly over a considerably huge gap like that and land on the other side of the bridge? Why didn't Van Helsing try to stop the horses?

Answer: Because having them jump the gap looked really cool. In reality, horses are not stupid. If they see a huge drop off like that, they will stop by themselves!

Grumpy Scot

Question: Exactly how did Van Helsing and Carl get out of Draculas' Castle? When Carl tried to back out shortly after arriving he just bounced off the wall, so how did they get out later?

Answer: The spell's objective was to keep Dracula prisoner; once he is dead, the spell is broken, so everyone could have left the way they came in.

Sereenie

Question: Does anyone know what kind of an accent Dracula (and most of the other characters) have? I've googled Transylvanian, and it gave me quite a few countries.

Answer: Well, no one really knows what type of accent they were trying to achieve - but Dracula (Vlad the Impaler) was born in Transylvania in the middle ages. Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia were joined together later to form Romania. Therefore, it would historically correct to say they had Romanian accents.

Zwn Annwn

Question: Does anyone know the correct or approximate number of Vampire offspring featured in the movie? This includes any on screen, off screen, or any offspring that were killed during the end of the film.

Joshua Stroupe

Answer: There's no way of knowing. Only that being with three women for four hundred years, it could be anywhere in the billions. Especially when their seen after Dracula used the Frankenstein Monster to give them life.

Question: In the credits it lists the name of the dark haired bride as Verona - it does this in the game as well - but I can't find that name spoken anywhere in the film. Where is it, if anywhere?

Answer: Her name is never spoken, but the two other brides' names, Aleera and Marishka, are spoken.

Mortug

Question: How much time is it from 12 midnight to the twelfth stroke of midnight? Because in the movie it seemed to go over way longer than 12 seconds.

James Brown

Chosen answer: Clocks vary, but it's not always 1-second per stroke. Some clocks can take up to a minute to fully strike 12.

Bishop73

Question: Why did Van Helsing blow that knockout dust into Anna's face? It seemed to have no connection to the plot of the movie.

Answer: To prevent her from going off to find Dracula or his brides - she was refusing to wait until the next day to go with Van Helsing as he had repeatedly asked.

Kaite13

Continuity mistake: Towards the end of the movie, in the scene where Anna is taking the werewolf cure to Van Helsing and the vampire bride stops her on the large fallen pillar, she falls so she is in a sitting position with the cure in her left hand. She then switches it to her right. Then in the close-up shot, the cure is still in her left hand and she switches it again. (01:49:50)

More mistakes in Van Helsing

Aleera: You can't go until I say you can go. And, I say you can go when you're dead!

More quotes from Van Helsing

Trivia: 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.

More trivia for Van Helsing

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.