Stan Helsing

Once in a while, a film comes along that defies expectation and speaks to your heart and mind. Stan Helsing, however, is an inexorable pile of crap.

It goes without saying that if you’ve ever watched one of the slew of dreadful 'parody' films that have emanated from the bowels of Hollywood in the last five years - that began with the fitfully amusing Scary Movie and its law-of-diminishing-returns sequels, through to Epic Movie, Disaster Movie and most recently Dance Flick - Stan Helsing is worse than all of those films put together.

This review may pique the interest of those who think that no movie can be so poor. However, Stan sits in a bottom of the barrel class of its own. Stan Helsing (Steve Howey - the poor man’s Ashton Kutcher) works in Shlockbuster (yep, that's as far as the comedic skills of the creators run) and will be fired unless he runs an errand for his Doogie Howser-lookalike boss. This is truly the dramatic core of the piece and, as he links up with his four moronic friends, his place of work is invaded by Michael Myers, Freddie Krueger, Pinhead, Chucky and Jason Voorhees looking to take on Van Helsing (in the words of the ‘Allo ‘Allo Italian policeman: “What a mistake-a-to-make-a!”). Sadly, the budget given to the make-up department unfortunately does not stretch to anything more than the local fancy dress shop and ergo the hapless actors are conjoined with hapless costumes.

Horror references come thick and fast, though it would be doing ourselves a disservice to spend more time reviewing this nonsense than the writers spent on the screenplay, so suffice to say when Leslie Nielsen turns up in drag and a Michael Jackson look-alike serves “rocket suckers with balls” to young children, you know that both they and you have reached a cinematic comedic nadir.



Released on DVD on 1st February 2010 by Anchor Bay Films.

Written by Simon Cole.