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
Irish literature and they wrote what came to be termed "novels of the big house". Carleton was an exception, and his "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry" showed life on the other side of the social divide. Bram Stoker, the author of "Dracula", was outside both traditions, as was the early work of Lord Dunsany. One of the premier ghost story writers of the nineteenth century was Sheridan Le Fanu, whose works include "Uncle Silas" and "Carmilla". The novels and stories, mostly humorous, of Edith Somerville and Violet Florence Martin (who wrote together as Martin Ross), are among the most accomplished