Vampire Movie Month: Van Helsing and John Carpenter's Vampires

Van Helsing (2004), John Carpenter’s Vampires (1998)

I’m signed up for a couple of services that alert me to positions that churches are trying to fill. I see jobs for senior pastors, youth pastor, small group coordinators… but I’ve never seen the job of vampire hunter come up. It’s odd, because you’d think that position would have a lot of turnover. Perhaps, like me, you’d been unaware that vampire hunters were church employees, but I’ve seen this confirmed by not just one but two films this week: Van Helsing and John Carpenter’s Vampires.

Doctor Abraham van Helsing was a character in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Dracula. In the book, he’s an aged Dutch scholar whose knowledge is invaluable when a vampire attacks England. In the film Van Helsing, Hugh Jackman plays a stylishly dressed soldier hired by the Vatican to fight evil. He goes to Transylvania ten years before Stoker’s novel was written, accompanied by a friar named Carl who serves as a 19th century Q to the church’s James Bond, supplying Van with rapid fire crossbows (among other things).

It’s a mess of a film, and we don’t get much clergy or church in the battles involving not just Dracula and other vampires but also werewolves and Frankenstein’s monster. Friar Carl curses and sleeps with a woman, explaining “I’m a friar, not a monk” when his actions are questioned. I don’t think the Roman Catholic Church has behavioral distinctions between the two.

John Carpenter’s Vampires has more church and clergy in the plot of the film. (John Carpenter was the director of the film. I suppose his name was added because of the generic nature of the title.) Again, vampire hunters are employees of the Roman Catholic Church. We see a priest with a crew of fighters before they attack a vampire nest in a small town. Father Giovanni prays for the slayers and blesses their weapons, all in Latin. He helps where he can, but mainly asks, “What’s going on?” He does bless the vampires after they are killed, asking God to give peace to their souls.

But the evening after the slayers do their vampire killing, they have a party at night with a lot of alcohol and prostitutes. And the priest joins in the drinking, with apparent approval of all the activities. Jack Crow (James Woods), the leader of the slayers, tells the drinking priest, “You better slow down, Padre.”

“I’m fine,” he responds. He also makes arrangements for the slayers’ payment from Rome.

But the slayers didn’t get the vampires’ Master, and he attacks the party. The Master beheads the priest and kills all of the slayers but two: Crow and his right hand man, Anthony Montoya (Daniel Baldwin). One of the prostitutes, Katrina (Sheryl Lee), also survives the attack, but she is bitten by a vampire, changing her into a vampire.

Crow then goes to see Cardinal Alba (Maximilian Schell). Crow wants to quit, but the Cardinal insists he must continue his work. He assigns him a new priest, Father Adam Guiteau (Tim Guinee) who worked in the Vatican vampire archives and is familiar with Crow’s work. Crow asks the Cardinal if he knows anything about the particular Master who attacked the slayers.

The Cardinal tells Crow that the Master used to go by the name of Jan Valek. He was a priest who turned against the church in the 1300’s and led a rebellion. He was captured and tried for heresy. A botched exorcism led to Jan’s bodily death, but his soul lived on; he became one of the undead, a vampire.

Crow is taken aback by the information, saying, “So the first vampire was created by the Church.” Which I guess explains why the church feels obligated to hire vampire slayers. We learn that Crow was raised by the Church after his parents were killed by vampires, and he had been trained by them for his work.

Crow, Montoya, and Father Adam go out in search of the Master. They get a clue when they learn that the Master attacked a church in the Southwest. The priest of the church, Father Molina, was a scholar of Church history in the United States, but he was kidnapped and killed. And artifact, the Cross of Belize, was stolen from the church (in this film, crosses don’t harm vampires).

This Cross can, instead, be used to make vampires invulnerable to sunlight), but a priest must perform that occult ritual to give the invulnerability to the Master. Where, oh where, can the Master find a priest who would help him with this ritual?

The slayers track the Master down to a ghost town. We learn that the crew has been betrayed by Cardinal Alba, who has stopped believing in God and wants the eternal(ish) life that the vampires offers.

Fortunately, Father Adam stays true to his calling and rescues Crow in the end. Father Adam shows Crow his crucifix and assures the vampire hunter, “He was always with us.”

So Father Adam raises the Steeple rating for the church in this film, but Cardinal Alba drags it down. The average for the clergy in both films comes to Two Steeples.

(It should be noted Vampires is rated R and well deserves the rating. Van Helsing is rated PG-13 -- which in this case means it should never be watched by anyone ever again.)

New Hampshire films on the small screen

If I was pressed to name my favorite living movie star (RIP Boris Karloff), I’d have to go with Bill Murray. Since I often laugh when I merely see a Murray smirk, the entertainment quotient is most high. I’m happy to kick off this post with a film set in New Hampshire that features one of the legend’s funnier performances: 1991’s What About Bob?

The film tells the story of a psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Marvin  (Richard Dreyfuss), who gets more than he bargains for when he agrees to take on the petri dish of phobias and neurosis that is Bob (Murray). The doctor tries to leave his practice in New York City behind for a vacation at Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. But Bob -- and his fish -- find a way to join him.

There are no churches in the film, but it illustrates the great challenge of loving your neighbor as yourself (not many people in the film do this very well). We watched this film a day after visiting the real Lake Winnipesaukee. It looked nothing like it. The end credits of the film include thanks to Virginia, the true filming location.

Lake Winnipesaukee was also used as a shooting location for the award winning 1981 drama, On Golden Pond. The story of a cranky old man Norman (Henry Fonda’s last performance) and his difficult relationships with his daughter (real life daughter Jane Fonda) and wife, Ethel (Katharine Hepburn, who met Fonda for the first time on the set), the film won Oscars for Best Actor, Actress and Screenplay. Though set in New Hampshire, Ernest Thompson based his screenplay on his experiences in Maine. And scenic footage from the film was used for the CBS sitcom Newhart, which was set in Vermont.

With a name like The Hotel New Hampshire, you probably already guessed that the 1984 film based on John Irving’s odd novel about family comedy and tragedy was filmed in Canada. But another film based on the work of an acclaimed novelist, Russell Banks, 1997’s Affliction, well, it was filmed in Canada as well, even though it tells the story of the troubled relationship of a small town New Hampshire policeman (Nick Nolte) and his father (James Coburn, whose performance won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.) There have been two versions of Vladimir Nabokov’s classic novel about pedophilia, Lolita, but neither Stanley Kubrick’s acclaimed 1962 version nor Adrian Lynn’s not so acclaimed 1997 version filmed the New Hampshire scenes in New Hampshire. The 1940 film version of Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town did include some background shots from New Hampshire.

John Carpenter’s 1994 cult horror film, In the Mouth of Madness, about a writer whose novels come to life, is set in New Hampshire but was filmed in Canada. Joe Johnson’s 1995 kids’ cult film, Jumanji, about a board game that comes to life is set in New Hampshire and (surprise!) was also chiefly filmed in the state (though some of it was filmed in Canada and Maine).

1941’s The Devil and Daniel Webster (aka All That Money Can Buy), based on the Stephen Vincent Benet short story is set in New Hampshire and features one of the state’s most acclaimed historical figures (Webster, not Old Scratch). I couldn’t find where it was filmed, which leads me to believe it was filmed in Hollywood rather than New Hampshire.

John Sayles’s 1980 drama, Return of the Secaucus 7, about the reunion of college classmates, was set and filmed in New Hampshire. The film is widely considered a cornerstone of the modern independent film movement and the model for Lawrence Kasden’s The Big Chill.

New Hampshire native son Adam Sandler has set a number of films in his home state, such as  Click, Mr. Deeds and Eight Crazy Nights, but even he doesn’t actually film in New Hampshire. (Which is at least understandable for Eight Crazy Nights, since it’s animated.)

Prince of Darkness (1987)

I start to worry when people start talking about proving their faith through SCIENCE! Understand, I believe all truth is God's truth, but trying to use scientific means to prove truths of the spiritual often corrupts the scientific method or the spiritual truth as we try to jam the two things together (or we end up with something really crazy like the urban legend that NASA found the missing day from the biblical account of a battle in the book of Joshua.)


The priest in John Carpenter's "Prince of Darkness" doesn't share my concerns as he rounds up a group of scientists to prove not only that Satan is real, but also that he is, not surprisingly, up to no good. The priest is played by Donald Pleasence, bringing the same crazy eyes and mad obsession that he brought to the role of Michael Myers' psychiatrist in John Carpenter's "Halloween."


The priest has been sent by His Eminence and other high-up Catholic muckety mucks to investigate the death of an old priest in downtown Los Angeles. We're told the church was built in the 1500s in a special arrangement with the Spanish government of the time, though the church really looks like a standard structure built in the early 20th century rather than one of the missions.


Apparently, this very old church was thriving in the 1950s until the (now dead) old priest joined "The Brotherhood of the Sleep." (I have to admit, there's some great marketing in that name. I'd be quite tempted to join based on the name alone. "The Fellowship of the Nap" would be similarly tempting.) The old priest shuttered the doors of the church and closed himself in, venturing out only once a week for food. It soon becomes apparent that he had what they call in the movies, "a dark secret."


The investigating priest (we'll call him "Father Donald," though he's just "the priest" in the film) contacts aleading physicist, Professor Howard Birack (and his crack team of scientists and graduate students), to prove that Satan himself is alive and living in a glowing green canister in downtown LA. (You would think Los Angeles itself would be proof enough that Satan was alive in LA). The priest and the scientist find the Can o' Glowing Evil in a basement of the church along with a mysterious book that contains the secrets of the universe. (The walls of this room are covered with crucifixes and the room is full of burning candles. The scientist are not at all interested in why this room that has been sealed off for an indefinite period of time has dozens of lit candles that never seem to go out.)


The book they found is written in Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Assyrian, and numerals. A crack translator discovers that the book tells the dark story of the Brotherhood of the Sleep's intention to keep not only Satan, but also the Father of Satan, locked away on the property. Apparently, the Church has been selling a bill of goods through the years about Evil being a spiritual thing; Evil is from outer space and is now in the church basement.


The book says that Jesus was from outer space as well, from a different humanoid race, and he came to warn us of the Big Bad currently in the basement. The only source of this information is the book from the basement, but it has differential equations so it must be true. (Outside of the writings of Dan Brown, is there a more sound theological source than the book from the basement?)


Father Donald admits that really, everyone in the church already knew this stuff, but the clergy had it good telling people how they should live, and they didn't want to give up the gig. He gets pretty weepy making this confession.


But wouldn't you know it, Pure Evil gets loose, and people start to die in graphically violent ways. The scientists try to fight pure evil with science, and Father Donald prays and uses Latin incantations. Eventually, both men and women of the test tube and the man of the cloth resort to clubs and axes to fight evil in the form of zombie-like possessed people. I must admit, Father Donald is pretty good with the fire ax.


Since Father Donald claims that the church through the centuries has been a complete fraud, I can't give him or his church our highest rating. On the other hand, he helps save the world from utter destruction, so he's got that going for him. I'm giving the church in this film two steeples


(On a side note, one of the homeless zombie people in the film is played by Alice Cooper, who now claims to be a born again Christian. However, he continues to use his guillotine and devil music, including the song, "Prince of Darkness," which he wrote for this film.)