Van Helsing is a 2004 action gothic horror film written and directed by Stephen Sommers. It stars Hugh Jackman as Dutch monster hunter Van Helsing, and Kate Beckinsale as Anna Valerious. Van Helsing is both a homage and tribute to the Universal Horror Monster films from the 1930s and 1940s (also produced by Universal Pictures which were in turn partially based on novels by Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley), of which Sommers is a fan.