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| “ | I may have failed to kill you, Count, but my sister will not. | „ |
| ~ Velkan to Count Dracula. |
Prince Velkan Valerious, also known as the Wolf Man, is a major antagonist of the 2004 dark fantasy horror action film Van Helsing. He was a Roman prince, son of the deceased King Boris Valerious, and the brother of Princess Anna. He was an incarnation of "The Wolf Man" that served Count Dracula.
He was portrayed by Will Kemp.
History[]
One year after their father went missing, Velkan and Anna Valerious became the last of their bloodline and continued hunting monsters under Dracula's command. With the help of a group of ordinary townspeople, they hunted a Grey Werewolf, with Velkan acting as bait to lure it into the trap, which gets jammed leaving him vulnerable. Anna tried to distract the Werewolf and gets stuck in their trap, but Velkan was stuck in a tree and dropped his gun, loaded with silver bullets. The hunter's gunfire starts breaking the ropes on the cage and crashed it, setting the Werewolf free and rampages after Anna. The beast chased Anna towards a cliff where Velkan saved his sister by pushing her to safety and shot the Werewolf with a silver bullet from his gun, but gets pulled off the cliff and bitten in the process. Velkan ended up being consumed by the curse and survived.
Velkan survived his fall and became the next Werewolf under Dracula's servitude, who sent him out to find who the new visitor was, Van Helsing. Velkan returned to his home at Castle Valerious as the Wolf Man and startled his sister Anna. When the moon was briefly hidden by clouds, he returned to his human form and tried to tell Anna Dracula's secret but was cut off when the moon unveiled causing Velkan to transform into a Werewolf a second time. Velkan became the Wolf Man again and fled the castle when Van Helsing rushed in and fired at him. The Werewolf headed to the Transylvanian village. Van Helsing followed the Wolf Man and ambushed him as he was speaking to Top Hat the grave digger. Van Helsing tried to take a shot at the Werewolf but was stopped by Anna causing the pair to argue. Van Helsing tells her he is a monster that will kill innocent people but Anna defended her brother and knew of a cure and set out to find it to save her brother for giving his life for her.
The Wolf Man met with Dracula who set up shop in Castle Frankenstein and returned to his human form, failing his task of finding out who Van Helsing was. Velkan told the Vampire Lord that he had not revealed anything to his sister and stated he would take Dracula's secret to his grave and preferred to die instead of helping him. Count Dracula reminded him after the 12th stroke of midnight he will remain a Werewolf and serve him. Dracula then reunited Velkan with his father who was killed when he was used as a test subject to bring Dracula's children to life but failed. The Count then planned to use Velkan in his next experiment because he had Werewolf venom flowing through his veins for a better benefit. Velkan was tied to an iron pod and raised above the castle with lightning zapping his body repeatedly as the venom inside his body worked as a power source for Dracula's children but it didn't have a permanent effect.
Anna raced through the castle and reached where Velkan was being held and tried to free her brother. Velkan insisted she leave him tied down as he began his transformation again. Van Helsing rescued Anna and both made an escape away from Castle Frankenstein and the Werewolf tried to chase after them. Van Helsing fired a grappling line and the pair zoomed line away but the Wolf Man snapped the line and fell into the lake below. After the experiment failed, Dracula, his Brides and Igor were on the rooftop discussing the failure and the Werewolf returned to the castle. Seething with rage, Dracula ordered the Wolf Man to hunt down Van Helsing and Anna and kill them both. The next morning, Van Helsing and Anna spent the night in the ruins of the burnt Windmill and discovered the Frankenstein Monster. The Wolf Man had tracked them there and Van Helsing fired at him trying to prevent him from escaping but managed to flee and reported the monster's survival to his master.
Van Helsing decided the Frankenstein Monster would be safer in Rome and began a journey with the monster, Anna, and his side kick Carl in a carriage pulled by fast Transylvanian horses. Along the journey, Van Helsing was attacked by Dracula's Brides and during the conflict the carriage fell into a chasm. Verona raced towards it but discovered the carriage was a decoy and exploded once it reached the bottom killing the Bride in the process. Van Helsing reunited with Anna in the real coach that carried Frankenstein and Carl. The Werewolf managed to track them intending to capture the monster for Dracula. The Wolf Man ended up setting the carriage on fire and forced the passengers to jump. As Van Helsing made his escape, he fired silver bullets into the Werewolf who lunged at him through the flames and managed to bite the monster hunter, passing on the curse to him.
The following morning, Anna found a gravely wounded Velkan lying on a rock gasping. Before dying, Velkan asked Anna to forgive him and closed his eyes. Anna kissed her brother goodbye promising she will she him again. Distraught at the loss of her last family member, Anna shoved Van Helsing and discovered he had been bitten. In the end Van Helsing killed Dracula when he transformed into a Werewolf but also killed Anna in the process, effectively ending the Valerious bloodline. Van Helsing and Carl held a funeral pyre for Anna and while grieving he saw Anna reuniting with Velkan and their father. The Valerious family finally came together and entered heaven.
Personality[]
A portrait of Velkan Valerious in the Vatican.
Velkan was quite heroic, putting himself in danger and was protective of his sister Anna making sure no harm came to her. Velkan was a good man who seek to defeat Dracula to rid his deceased family of purgatory, as a result of an oath made by his ancestor, Valerious The Elder. Being the hero he was, Velkan wished to rid the world of the evil of Dracula. After being turned into a Werewolf, the curse made him obey Dracula, being consumed by the curse. After his permanent transformation into the Wolf Man, Velkan tried feebly to resist obeying Dracula. Once the curse took hold, he became a murderous lupine beast that killed anyone who got in his way and almost killed his sister that he loved so much. The Wolf Man tended to be extremely destructive in nature, attacking any and all individuals they come across indiscriminately in a berserker-like fashion, whether they be total strangers or those they love the most. After dying, he was at peace to be finally released from his curse.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Superhuman Strength: Velkan could cause immense injury to even the strongest of humans with his strength. As a Werewolf, his will is Dracula's will. He is a slave to Dracula and is used as a weapon against Van Helsing. He is extremely fast, powerful, and agile. His fur is brown, and he sheds until his first full moon.
- Agility: Werewolves are able to climb, leap and cling to surfaces.
- Superhuman Stamina: As the Wolf Man, he pursued and reached Transylvanian horse carriages very fast from many kilometers without getting tired.
- Superhuman Senses: As a Werewolf, his senses become very enhanced, especially hearing and smell.
Trivia[]
- Director Stephen Sommers deliberately chose to avoid the style of transformations from other werewolf films, where the character would usually grow hair as part of the change. Instead the decision was made to have the character rip his skin off to reveal the werewolf form underneath, going with the idea that the beast "comes from within".
- Despite being called "The Wolf Man" in Van Helsing, Velkan was not the only Werewolf shown in the film, since at the beginning a nameless Grey Werewolf appeared and infects him, and Velkan in turn infects Gabriel Van Helsing, becoming another Werewolf.
- In the official video game of the movie for the PS2, Velkan appears as a constant boss. Here he is shown as a huge Werewolf about 10 feet tall. When defeating him for the last time, Velkan thanked Van Helsing for freeing him, and when knowing that a Werewolf can kill Dracula, Velkan infected Van Helsing, so that he (Van Helsing) as a Werewolf, annihilates Dracula.
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