Gender and Dracula in Van Helsing (2004)

Van Helsing takes an interesting twist on the classic horror character Dracula. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Count is a portrayed as a vicious, cold-blooded killer, hell-bent on spreading his terror across Western Europe, particularly England. This diabolic character is played in an entirely different light in this modern depiction of a classic horror tale. We see a more romanticized, sympathetic portrayal of Dracula, which leads the audience member into taking a different perspective of the character for the duration of the movie.

In one of the first scenes with Dracula, the audience first discovers that Dracula is not what they were expecting. Dracula’s appearance starts with him mourning the death of one of his brides. This scene makes the viewer feel sympathetic with him. He gives a speech about how his vampirism has left him with no heart and how he doesn’t feel love or any other emotions. The viewer also gets the idea that he didn’t really want this life when he says, “I am hollow, and I will live forever.” His brides end up comforting their master saying that it’s not so bad. This scene made me pause and think about how the movie has been set up so far. Van Helsing, the protagonist, has been labeled a murder and is wanted by the law, but the antagonist, Dracula, has been seen as sympathetic. Even the townspeople defend his actions by saying the vampires never kill more than 1 or 2 people a month, and they can live with that. This reverse portrayal makes the viewer feel a connection to Dracula, and will set the viewer up for the scene which reveals his motive this entire film.

When Van Helsing and Anna finally end up at Dr. Frankenstein’s castle, they find out that Dracula plans on using his equipment to bring life to his children. This was a really surprising twist for representation of the character Dracula. This puts him in the role of a father and his three vampire brides as mothers. As a vampire, the role of “parents” seems a bit useless considering they could make more through biting a person. Why does he want offspring that are genetically his? I believe this plays towards the sympathetic Dracula character, showing him as family man. Ultimately, the experiment fails again after numerous attempts, but that doesn’t stop Dracula from trying again.

Dracula and his remaining bride kidnap Anna and attempt to trade her for the key to Dr. Frankenstein’s machine so they may give life to their children. The exchange is to be made at a masquerade ball in Budapest. The ball is a trap for Van Helsing, since Dracula secretly makes sure all the guests are vampires. Anna is the one character that sticks out in this scene. While all the other attendees are in dark colored clothes, Anna is dressed in a bright red dress. This could be symbolic for blood and signify that she is the only human at the ball. She is held against her will by Dracula in a sort of trance, and she is forced to dance with him. The dance was very sexualized and can be seen as an almost rape scenario since Dracula is holding her against her will. Dracula makes it clear that he has no intentions of trading Anna, which is obvious in his attempt to trap Van Helsing. He attempts to turn her into a vampire to replace the loss of 2 of his brides, but is stopped by Van Helsing swooping in to save her.

As far as plot goes, this film adaptation is very far away from the novel. Even the character of Dracula has been romanticized to the viewers and not seen as a complete monster. I believe that modern day culture has impacted Dracula heavily. People took a classic heinous monster and turned many adaptations into a romanticized story, including this film Van Helsing. The portrayal of Dracula shows the timelessness of the character and how it can be adapted into reflecting the values of any culture. This film appeals to the idea of eternal love and stereotypical gender roles of a husband and wife’s next role is as parents. You also get examples of nontraditional gender roles too, such as having female characters who are anything but helpless. Gender isn’t seen as a constricting label, and the film explores that in this wonderful cinematic twist of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.