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
Michael Arnzen Michael Arnzen Michael A. Arnzen is a horror author and writer of the Bram Stoker Award-winning novel, "Grave Markings" (Dell Books). He won his second Bram Stoker Award for his newsletter ("The Goreletter") and his third for his poetry collection, "Freakcidents". Arnzen was born in Amityville, New York. After a brief stint in the US Army overseas, where he began writing horror stories to entertain his fellow soldiers, he moved to Colorado, where he launched his career in publishing to much success. By the mid-nineties he received the coveted Bram Stoker Award—the highest accolade in the horror genre. Shortly thereafter,