Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing Just Returned to Streaming - Your Perfect Halloween Double Feature

The most gloriously unhinged monster mash of the 2000s is back where it belongs. Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing has landed on Peacock just in time for spooky season - and it did not come alone.

Released in 2004, Van Helsing stars Jackman - then fresh off becoming a star as Wolverine in the first two X-Men films - as Gabriel Van Helsing, a 19th-century agent of the Vatican tasked with eradicating supernatural evil. Sent to Transylvania, he crosses paths with Anna Valerious, played by Kate Beckinsale, and together they take on Count Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, and the Wolf Man in a single movie. It was written and directed by Stephen Sommers, who had just delivered The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, and the pitch was essentially: what if we smashed every classic Universal monster into one movie and set the budget on fire?

As of October 1, Van Helsing is streaming on Peacock, arriving on the same day as the Mummy movies. That makes the NBCUniversal platform the official home of the Stephen Sommers monster-thon this Halloween: you can now mainline the director's entire brand of swashbuckling monster adventure in one sitting, from Brendan Fraser's desert tombs to Jackman's Transylvanian castles.

The cult classic that almost launched a universe

Here is the thing about Van Helsing: it was a box-office disappointment that critics reviled, and it was simply too expensive to justify the sequel Universal wanted. Yet in the two decades since, it has quietly built a devoted following that appreciates exactly what it is - a big, sincere, gloriously silly adventure. Even Roger Ebert, who called the film silly, awarded it three out of four stars and deemed it spectacular and fun.

It is also a fascinating what-if. Long before the Dark Universe crashed and burned, Van Helsing could have been the connective tissue of a Sommers monster universe - imagine Jackman's immortal monster hunter teaming up with Fraser's O'Connells. A planned Transylvania television series never materialized, and a reboot with Julius Avery directing and James Wan producing has been quiet since 2020. The cast around Jackman deserves another look too: Richard Roxburgh chews the scenery gloriously as Count Dracula, David Wenham brings unexpected warmth as the friar-turned-gadget-man Carl, and Shuler Hensley gives Frankenstein's monster a genuinely tragic soul. For now, the 2004 original stands alone - and a new 4K collector's edition is on the way for the physical-media faithful.

Perfect Halloween viewing does not need to be prestigious. Sometimes it just needs Hugh Jackman fighting Dracula, a werewolf, and Frankenstein's monster in the same movie. Van Helsing is streaming on Peacock now.