Reviews

The basic premise of this movie is that Van Helsing, a well-known nemesis of Dracula in films gone-by, is now pitted against not only the vampire himself, but with a wolf man and the Frankenstein monster thrown in to the mix. This time, however, fantastic (and unbelievable) techno-gadgets are used in a never-ending onslaught of laughable violence.

In most parts, however, the movie is way too "over-produced", with just too much 'stuff' going on in each frame which is nothing short of chaotic visuals and over-stimulation; there is something to be said for the old-fashioned less-is-more method of cinematography.

The worst part is that the whole thing is so heavily CGI that it almost comes off as a cartoon - the old 'Ray Harryhausen' special effects were far more convincing and entertaining.

Good story about eight school friends from a hiking club who meet up at a B&B in a mountainous forest twice afterwards - the first time resulting in a misunderstanding and the second with a mystery involved. Everyone plays a pretty good part, except for the woman playing the owner of the B&B (with a weird son). The woman is so irritating - with a perpetual facial expression of distress and angst - that I had to forward through her parts; she's a total distraction for the movie. If it weren't for her, the show is pretty good and worth watching, and also has several interesting surprises thrown in.

The series started out with a great variety of supernatural thriller and mystery stories but, by Seasons 4 or 5, focused primarily on Sci-Fi stuff which became very repetitive and boring.