Gabriel Van Helsing is the titular main protagonist of the 2004 film Van Helsing.

Suffering from memory loss, he is a legendary monster hunter who is believed to be immortal as he has several dreams of ancient battles long ago. He fights the infamous Count Dracula, and must become that which he fights in order to vanquish Dracula. He is assisted by Carl, a friar and weapons specialist, and Anna Valerious, his love-interest.

He is portrayed by Hugh Jackman, who also played Logan in the X-Men films, Charlie Kenton in Real Steel, Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, and Keller Dover in Prisoners, and voiced Roddy St. James in Flushed Away, Memphis in the Happy Feet films, Easter Bunny in Rise of the Guardians, and Sir Lionel Frost in Missing Link.

Biography[]

In the 1880s, Van Helsing's memory is taken from him as punishment for past sins, and he is soon found half-dead on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica, which happens to be the secret headquarters of the Knights of the Holy Order, a secret society dedicated to protecting Earth from all evil. Knowing that he was sent by God, Cardinal Jinette takes him in and hires him to kill evil creatures for them. By 1888, Van Helsing is the most wanted man in Europe, labelled a murderer by society.

London Assignment[]

Van Helsing and Friar Carl, a non-lethal member of the Order, travel to London to investigate a series of horrific murders. These decidedly supernatural killings are being committed by mad scientist Dr. Henry Jekyll, while in the form of his evil alter ego, Mr. Edward Hyde. When tracing Hyde to his underground fortress, Van Helsing and Carl find a young woman who claims to be Queen Victoria, and they discover that Jekyll is in love with her. In order to keep her young and thus immortal, she has been given a potion by Jekyll that turns her into a young woman for one night. In order to create the potion which causes the transformations, Jekyll needs the drained souls of his freshly killed victims, thus meaning the killings will never stop.

Jekyll then kidnaps Victoria, using the golden jubilee balloon to escape. Van Helsing uses his grappling gun to follow the balloon, then proceeds to board it. In the balloon, Jekyll becomes Mr. Hyde to kill Van Helsing and crashes the balloon in the process. While fighting on the in-construction Tower Bridge, Hyde is shot through the arm, but manages to escape. Upon returning Victoria to Buckingham Palace, Van Helsing says that daybreak will break the enchantment, returning her to her real age. She rewards him with a kiss at the precise moment of daybreak, causing her old self - completely forgetting everything that has happened - to slap him and call for guards. Van Helsing sends word back to the Order's headquarters about what has happened while he tracks Jekyll to Paris, France.

Rue Morgue[]

Van Helsing hunts and kills Mr. Hyde in Notre-Dame de Paris, but just before his death, he turns back into Dr. Jekyll, and the police accuse Van Helsing of murder. As Van Helsing jumps into action through a window, a woman is floating in the air, reminding him that he had not slept in 52 hours. He is found guilty by the authorities, but the priests give him the opportunity to escape. Van Helsing then proceeds to escape through the sewers to stay at a secluded room.

During the night, he hears a scream and ventures to track it down, and the floating woman - revealed to be a medium - is dragged towards a chimney. Van Helsing gives chase and tries to help the woman by attacking with his tojo blades; he releases her, only to see the woman grabbed once more by the invisible force. It throws both of them through a window. She is killed by the fall, and the police once again hunt Van Helsing, who, undaunted, chases the invisible force, guided by screams and destruction left in its wake. Van Helsing wonders aloud "Why is it monsters never run into bodice shops?" as the invisible monster enters the morgue.

The police and citizens surround the building, but Van Helsing escapes through the sewers once again, only to find himself faced with the invisible monster, who drags him into the water; they travel through the canal, until they fall into a cage trap. Van Helsing easily escapes, but finds himself between cages and bars; corpses and monsters; half-beasts and half-humans. He states that he has "finally and fully sensed evil". Documents on a nearby desk reveal that the monster is named Beathán. It says that he was injected with a serum of invisibility - Van Helsing even remembers having heard a Vatican report about an incident of an "Englishman" becoming invisible in West Sussex. Van Helsing learns that he is in the secret laboratory of mad scientist Dr. Moreau.

He suddenly finds himself with the same, about to feed the invisible monster. They discourse about the creation of the chimeras in his laboratory. Van Helsing states that it is not his job to kill him and his creations, but he will arrest him for the matter. However, Moreau is not fazed, and releases Beathán. Van Helsing fights the monster, first turning him visible with the antidote to the invisibility serum that Moreau had invented and later fighting him with his own weapons. The fight becomes violent as time passes, and the now-visible monster (resembling the Gill-man) releases the rest of Moreau's creations. Van Helsing then proceeds to fight all of them.

Through spiritual talk, however, the medium tells him that the monster is her husband, transformed into a frog-like beast by the Doctor, and that he must relieve the beast from his torment. Moreau takes the confusion to his advantage, and he escapes without being seen, leaving his laboratory to be destroyed. Van Helsing and Beathán manage to escape and Van Helsing briefly ponders taking the beast with him to the Vatican. Finally, he reports that he "put forth all effort in trying to capture it... and failed", when, in reality, he just let the monster go. Van Helsing ends his report by stating that he had not slept in 53 hours.

The final image of Moreau sees his escaping with one of his creations, stating that "the world lacks vision", and that he should "move to an island perhaps. Somewhere drastic, like... the South Seas..."

Van Helsing[]

When Van Helsing returns to the Order in Vatican City, Rome, Cardinal Jinette informs him that Valerious the Elder's descendant, King Boris Valerious, went missing the previous year, and that Boris' children - Prince Velkan and Princess Anna - are the last of the family bloodline, and must be protected; if Velkan and Anna die before Dracula, their souls will forever remain in Purgatory. Van Helsing is tasked with going to Transylvania and killing Dracula, taking Carl with him. Meanwhile, in Transylvania, Anna lures a werewolf towards Velkan, who kills it with a silver bullet, but it bites him, and they both fall into a deep river gorge.

Once Van Helsing and Carl arrive in Vaseria, Transylvania, they meet Anna and many unwelcoming common folk, but they are soon attacked by the Brides of Dracula - Verona, Marishka, and Aleera - in broad daylight. When Van Helsing manages to kill Marishka, Anna gratefully takes him to her castle for a drink. That night, Velkan visits Anna to warn her of Dracula's plans, but before he can elaborate, he transforms into a werewolf and flees. Van Helsing and Anna follow Velkan to Frankenstein's castle, and they stumble upon Dracula's plan to duplicate Frankenstein's experiments to give life to thousands of his undead children, using Velkan as a conduit.

Van Helsing meets Dracula; he regards Van Helsing as an ancient rival, revealing that he knows all about him, and that he has information about his life before he lost his memory. As they get deeper into the conversation, Van Helsing flees when a loud noise is heard; Dracula's spawn come to life, but soon die due to lacking Frankenstein's original formula. Van Helsing and Anna escape and take refuge in a destroyed windmill, where they fall through a hole. They encounter Frankenstein's monster, who tells Van Helsing that he is the key to Frankenstein's machine that brought him to life.

Dracula needs the creature to bring his thousands of children to life, so Van Helsing decides to bring the creature to Rome, where he would be safe. Eavesdropping on their discussion, werewolf Velkan escapes with this new information. Later, in Anna's castle, Carl discovers a hidden painting of two rival knights; it comes to life, revealing the knights as a vampire and a werewolf in battle. Anna offers Transylvanian horses (the fastest horses in the world, even faster than werewolves) and a carriage as transportation.

They set out, but after a long ride, they are intercepted and attacked by Verona and Aleera near Budapest. The horses pulling the carriage jump over a broken bridge; Van Helsing and the horses make it across, but the carriage falls hundreds of feet. Verona flies down to save the monster, but the carriage is revealed to be a decoy filled with explosives and silver stakes, killing her. Van Helsing jumps onto another carriage driven by Anna, with Carl and the monster as her passengers.

They are attacked by the werewolf, who knocks over a lamp and sets the carriage on fire. As Van Helsing shoots the werewolf, it bites him. Now in his human form and dying, Velkan is found by Anna, and they say their goodbyes as Velkan takes his last breath, before Anna berates Van Helsing for killing her brother. He tells her it had to be done, but she discovers that he was bitten, and will soon become one as well. She is then captured by Aleera and brought to Budapest. Aleera meets with Van Helsing and offers to exchange Anna for the monster. He refuses and decides to rescue Anna by breaking into Dracula's summer palace, where he is hosting a masquerade ball for Halloween.

He hides the monster in a crypt, but he gets captured by the undead and brought to the laboratory. Dracula's guests are all revealed to be vampires as he unleashes them onto Van Helsing, Anna, and Carl. They escape thanks to Carl's invention, which ignites a light as intense as the Sun and kills all the vampires, save for Dracula and Aleera, who stayed behind. Van Helsing then learns from Carl that the Order wants Frankenstein dead, sending him into a werewolf-like rage as he begins to choke Carl, before calming down and apologising. They return to Frankenstein's castle and find everyone and everything gone; Dracula's servants had brought all the equipment to Dracula's hidden lair.

At Anna's castle, Carl sees the painting and explains that Count Dracula was murdered in 1462, but Dracula had previously made a deal with Satan; eternal life for his soul. As a result, Dracula's father, Valerious the Elder, was horrified at what his son had become, but was unable to kill his own son, so he imprisoned Dracula in an icy fortress. Dracula was then gifted wings by Satan. Valerious later promised God that his family wouldn't rest nor enter Heaven until Dracula was vanquished. A fragment, which Cardinal Jinette gave to Van Helsing back in Vatican City, opens the portal to Dracula's icy castle.

Once there, Van Helsing sees Igor and pins him with one of his automatic tojo blades. They then find Frankenstein imprisoned, and although they fail to free him, he tells them that Dracula has a cure to remove the curse of the werewolf, and they finally discover that only a werewolf can kill Dracula. Van Helsing threatens Igor and tells him to lead Carl and Anna to the cure. Before splitting up, Van Helsing gives Carl a silver stake and strongly insists he kill him if he isn't cured before midnight, whereupon he would stay a werewolf forever. Van Helsing and Anna share a passionate kiss, and then split up.

Van Helsing eventually frees Frankenstein, but Dracula notices him and throws him down several stories. Meanwhile, Anna and Carl find the cure, but Aleera attacks Anna, so the monster saves Anna and distracts Aleera. Igor secretly breaks free from Carl and chases him with a cattle prod, but the monster knocks Igor off the bridge and saves Carl, but the monster then slips off the ledge, so Carl saves him in return. After getting the cure for Van Helsing, Anna kills Aleera with a silver stake to the heart. Van Helsing survives the fall and battles Dracula in his werewolf form.

Dracula tries to possess him, but Van Helsing's will is too strong to overcome, and Dracula turns into his monstrous from. After the two battle it out, Dracula finally reveals that Van Helsing was the one who killed him back in 1462, and that he is the angel Gabriel, the Left Hand of God; when Van Helsing was left on the steps of the Vatican church years earlier, he was not only stripped of his memory, but also his immortality. Dracula also reveals his missing finger and asks for his ring back - the ring which Van Helsing is wearing. Dracula offers him to give him back the life he had as well as his memory.

Van Helsing refuses, saying that some things are better left forgotten, before gaining the upper hand and eventually biting Dracula on the neck, killing him and all his children. Anna then runs at werewolf Van Helsing and injects the cure into him, but he sees her and tackles her onto a couch, breaking her neck. Carl hesitantly tries to kill him with a silver stake, but the werewolf grabs him; they both look down at Anna and see that Van Helsing has killed her. Van Helsing returns to his human form and weeps as he cradles her body. In the morning, they build a pyre for Anna on a cliff overlooking the sea, before they burn her body.

Frankenstein's monster departs by raft to start a new life, and Van Helsing sees Anna's spirit reuniting with her family in the sky. Her soul appears before him and thanks him as she is reunited with her family and their souls could now go to Heaven. Van Helsing and Carl then ride off.

Personality[]

Van Helsing is a lonely and silent man, always expecting something to happen, as prey expects an ambush. He has fought many battles (though he lost his memories so he doesn't remember) and hunted countless monsters for years. Even though he hunts without question, he is always asking the church for forgiveness, as he sees them becoming who they used to be. Besides, no matter how many monsters he kills, he is seen as a murderer to the eyes of the people (mainly because the general public doesn't know that monsters exist). He often works alone, but can be a good partner or a powerful ally. Despite his slight contempt for the church, Gabriel is a devout man who does God's work.

Powers and Abilities[]

• Peak Human Strength: As a trained warrior, Van Helsing's strength can easily allow him to lift or press his own weight. During his last fight with Mr. Hyde, he was almost able to pull him off the building he was standing. After been bitten by a werewolf, his strength increased even as a human, as he bent iron bars, threw a power cell and climbed up a chain.
• Peak Human Agility & Reflexes: Van Helsing has shown to be extremely agile as well as having great reflexes. His reflexes can stand up against creatures likes vampires or werewolves.
• Peak Human Durability: Van Helsing can withstand attacks that would normally kill any man. He survived hits from Dracula's brides and Dracula himself and other creatures like Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein and the bite of a werewolf. After been bitten by a werewolf, he was far more durable, even as a human, allowing him to survive a lighting stroke (though he didn't receive the full impact) as well as a fall from a tower.
• Master Combatant: Van Helsing is a skilled warrior trained in combat for centuries by monks from different countries (as stated by Dracula).
• Hunter & Prey Instincts: As for the fact, that he has been hunting monsters for years, he has also been ambushed. As for that, Van Helsing developed an instinctive reaction on how to react when hunting monsters, but also to warn himself of any danger.
• Weaponry Expert: Van Helsing has shown extremely proficient in handling almost every gun he used. These includes dual spinning razor sharp saws, dual pistols, silver stakes, a crucifix, and his most important weapon, his special crossbow. He has very good aim, though he has shown not to be an expert.
• Will Power: Van Helsing is the only shown human to have control over the werewolf curse on a certain degree.
• Lycanthropy/Werewolf Physiology: After been bitten by the werewolf Velkan, Van Helsing gained new abilities, besides improving the old ones.
  • Superhuman Strength: As a werewolf, Van Helsing is far more stronger than his human form, even able to fight on equal scale to Dracula's vampiric form and even overpowering him.
  • Superhuman Stamina: As a werewolf, Van Helsing can fight longer than any human.
  • Superhuman Durability: As a werewolf, Van Helsing was able to withstand all of Dracula's blows without much discomfort.
  • Superhuman Speed: As a werewolf, Van Helsing's speed is far greater than any human, allowing him to run extraordinarily fast.
  • Superhuman Senses: As a werewolf, Van Helsing's senses are far greater than any human, as he can see, smell or hear far more than any human.
  • Super Jump: As a werewolf, Van Helsing's strength is also applied to his legs, allowing him to jump great distances.
  • Venom/Cursed Saliva: As a werewolf, his saliva is cursed, so whomsoever is bitten by him, will be transformed into a werewolf.

Werewolf Weaknesses[]

• Full Moon Deprivation: If the full moon is covered by clouds, the transformation will end, until the clouds move.
• Werewolf Cure: The werewolf cure removed the curse, making him human again.
• Silver: Can kill werewolves

Other Appearances[]

• Games
  • Van Helsing (2004)
• Documentaries
  • Van Helsing: Behind the Screams (2004)
  • The World of Van Helsing (2004)
  • Van Helsing: The Man and the Monsters (2004)
  • Cómo conseguir un papel en Hollywood (2007)

Gallery[]

Van Helsing vs. Mr. Hyde

Van Helsing becomes a werewolf

Van Helsing as a werewolf

Van Helsing Werewolf vs. Dracula Hellbeast

Trivia[]

• This is the only incarnation of Abraham Van Helsing portrayed as an action hero and monster hunter on the same vein with Blade and Winchester brothers instead of a scientist.
  • While a posthumous character, the Abraham Van Hellsing in Hellsing Ultimate was both scientist and warrior, as he, Jonathan Harker, and Quincy Harris were formidable enough to defeat Dracula, whose future renamed Alucard was a vampire of such power that it took an abstract equation to defeat him, but even then, was temporary.
• When Van Helsing turns into a werewolf, he has a small patch of gray fur on his chest in the shape of a cross, since he is said to be the Left Hand of God.
• Throughout the film, it is implied that Van Helsing is the archangel Gabriel. He references the First Jewish–Roman War by saying he remembers "fighting the Romans at Masada" (to which Carl responds, "That was in 73 AD!"). Later, Dracula gives his first name as "Gabriel" and refers to him as the "Left Hand of God". Gabriel is considered God's messenger, and was the angel to tell Zechariah and the Virgin Mary of John the Baptist and Jesus' births respectively.
  • The video game adaptation contradicted this by establishing Gabriel Van Helsing to be a human from start and that he and Dracula used to be brothers-in-arms. It was until Dracula fell in love with a woman thus breaking the Order's code in order to be with her. Things went downhill when Dracula's wife ended up perished during the struggle and worse, Van Helsing was forced to cut his former comrade down when the latter turned to dark magic in order to revive her.
• There are some chronological inconsistencies in the film. The map shows the path of the carriage heading south of the Carpathian Mountains towards Budapest, yet Budapest is actually west. Also, Transylvania only became part of Romania in 1920, meaning that it was still part of Hungary during the film's events.

Licensing[]

This article contains content derived from the "Gabriel Van Helsing" article on the Van Helsing Wiki, licensed under CC-BY-SA.