From Scholar to Slayer: Video Explores How Van Helsing Evolved Into Cinema’s Ultimate Action Hero

Dr. Emily Zarka, host of PBS’s Monstrum, recently explored the fascinating transformation of Abraham Van Helsing, a character who was introduced in Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a measured, intellectual academic and ended up in movies as a crossbow-wielding, vampire-slaying action hero.

In Stoker’s 1897 novel, Van Helsing is a doctor and scientist, a man of reason who uses logic, knowledge, and medical expertise to confront the supernatural. There is nothing flashy about him. He’s stoic, methodical, and deeply rooted in the traditions of Victorian scholarship. But as Dr. Zarka points out, Hollywood had other plans.

“How did Van Helsing go from academic in Dracula to action hero icon? This episode explores his evolution from Victorian scholar to monster-hunting legend, unpacking his role in the novel, pop culture legacy, and why he remains the ultimate supernatural slayer.”

As films began adapting Dracula and other horror stories, the character was reimagined to suit new tastes. By the mid-20th century, audiences wanted spectacle and physical confrontation, not just scholarly debates about folklore and disease. The monster hunter archetype itself shifted in pop culture, fueled by pulp magazines, adventure serials, and the rise of blockbuster filmmaking.

Zarka also examines the real-world history of monster hunters and how that profession’s role in society changed. “By the 20th century, traditional monster hunters largely faded into obscurity, replaced by explorers, scholars, scientists, hobbyists, and journalists chasing down stories of cryptids and unidentified aerial phenomena which newspapers printed stories of regularly.”

By the time Van Helsing appeared in big-budget films like 2004’s Van Helsing starring Hugh Jackman, he was less a reserved intellectual and more a supernatural action star, a character capable of leaping across rooftops, battling werewolves, and taking on an army of vampires.

It’s a far cry from the professor in Stoker’s novel, but it’s a transformation that speaks to the character’s adaptability and enduring appeal.

Whether he’s a calm, pipe-smoking academic or a fearless, gadget-equipped hero, Van Helsing remains one of fiction’s most enduring vampire hunters, a figure who bridges the gap between folklore’s old-world wisdom and cinema’s appetite for thrilling monster battles.