Van Helsing (film) Van Helsing (film) Van Helsing is a 2004 American horror film written and directed by Stephen Sommers. It stars Hugh Jackman as vigilante monster hunter Van Helsing, and Kate Beckinsale as Anna Valerious. The film is an homage and tribute to the Universal Horror Monster films from the 1930s and '40s (also produced by Universal Studios which were in turn based on novels by Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley), of which Sommers is a fan. The eponymous character was inspired by the Dutch vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing from Irish author Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula". Distributed by Universal Pictures, the
Bram Stoker "The Snake's Pass" in 1890 and "Dracula" in 1897. During this period, Stoker was part of the literary staff of "The Daily Telegraph" in London, and he wrote other fiction, including the horror novels "The Lady of the Shroud" (1909) and "The Lair of the White Worm" (1911). He published his "Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving" in 1906, after Irving's death, which proved successful, and managed productions at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Before writing "Dracula", Stoker met Ármin Vámbéry, a Hungarian writer and traveller. Dracula likely emerged from Vámbéry's dark stories of the Carpathian mountains. Stoker then spent several