Director: Soner Metin
Year: 2023
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: Wrath of Van Helsing, Van Helsing: Hunter of the Damned
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
After a mysterious encounter, a family hires an old friend of theirs to look into the unexplained disappearance of their daughter and her friends on a camping trip in an underground bunker, forcing him to battle a slew of psychological and literal demons to save the group from their fate.
Review:
Overall, this was a decent enough, if somewhat problematic genre effort. One of the better elements of this one manages to bring together the kind of introductory setup that allows it to bring together some effective elements. The main idea, involving the cast coming upon the closed-off area of the woods that’s supposedly not only radioactive but also houses the entranceway to a portal to allow Satanic beings into this world and setting him off on a quest to save the girls before it’s too late, is a fine start to get this going. The background on the cursed location is handled well enough, bringing about a fine history of use in Satanic rituals and a protection ritual in place that prevents the creatures from escaping, but not keeping others from venturing there to get attacked and eaten, while the means of getting them into the underground tunnels is decent enough to work with them going there to investigate the cover-up stories and stumbling upon everything else happening.
This is all nicely held in place so that the action scenes here aren’t so bad and have a fun, cheesy tone to them. The initial scenes of the group exploring the ruins around the tunnel make for some intriguing and suspenseful scenes where they get separated and wander off the decaying, crumbling ruins so that the creatures can launch surprise attacks to drain their blood. The following escape attempts and other attempts to navigate the tombs left behind mean plenty of fun encounters with the creatures and vampiric remains of her friends, as she’s left alone to be rescued at the end, constituting the other fun factor throughout. The main assault on the underground tunnels requires him and his friend to confront the various beings and creatures there waiting for the ritual to be completed so that they can leave the location and rain destruction on humanity is a lot of fun, with some solid combat scenes and the use of weaponry to bring about some blood moments while also filling in some extra plotlines about what’s going on, giving the film a lot to like.
There are some issues here that hold this one down. The biggest issue with this one is the overall lack of information here about what Van Helsing is supposed to be and what type of powers he has in his quests. The implication from the initial scene, where he makes the demonic pact, is that he becomes an immortal avenger hunting down the various creatures running around the world, yet it frequently mentions him being harmed and killed, suffering from the wounds he was just killed by. Little of that is in the film proper, with everything seemingly ignored for plot contrivance when it needs him to be the overwhelming victor against the creatures or the underdog harmed by the fury of the creatures he’s facing. It’s not helped at all by the confusing scene in which it all occurs, with that initial pact being broken up by the girls infiltrating the facility and going back and forth with the family looking for their missing daughter, so it’s all quite difficult to understand.
That ties into the other problem with the film in that it can’t seem to pin down what type of demonic force is actually at play. There’s plenty of inference about the scarred and burnt beings that are trapped there through a sacred covenant that binds them to the location, and that the purpose of the abduction is for one of the girls to be a sacrifice that will end their imprisonment and allow them to access the world at large. This, alongside their deformed appearance and make-up, all paint the creatures as demonic beings, yet the blood-drinking that turns victims into more members like them is a decidedly vampire trait, so it’s hard to pin down what they actually are. This one isn’t as bad, but it does drag this down similarly to the sluggish pace of the film, as it could’ve been far more lively and intent on getting her out of the state which she was in, rather than being quite slow-going, and with the overall low-budget limitation are what brings this down overall.
Overview: ***/5
An enjoyable and quite likable genre effort, this one comes off rather nicely for what it is, even though there are some pretty big flaws on display holding this one back overall. Those with an appreciation for this kind of genre fare or who don’t mind the drawbacks of this one will have the most to like, while most others out there should heed caution.
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