Category Archives: Van Helsing

Posts about the TV show Van Helsing, & its cast and crew.

The Van Helsing Cast – 2022 Leo Awards Nominations

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Rukiya Bernard - The Blactor poster

Rukiya Bernard

Rukiya Bernard (Doc in 28 Episodes) wrote and directed THE BLACTOR, a short film about a young black actor (Kadidja Watson played by Keeya King) who is mistaken for a gangster by a local cop (Mark Hildreth) as she’s leaving an audition. Bernard told Sabrina Furminger of YVR Screen Scene: “I wanted to make a dark comedy…so in the script I had a stereotypical gangsta bitch dialogue that the protagonist would have with the cop. And I thought how awful and oddly funny it would be if she had to do her lines to prove she’s actually an actor and not the character that she’s auditioning for.” THE BLACTOR, which had its premier at the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival, received eight Leo Awards nominations: Best Short Drama, Best Director, Best Screenwriter, Best Picture Editing, Best Musical Score, Best Costume Design, Best Performance Male (Mark Hildreth), and Best Performance Female (Keeya King). (King was Violet in 19 Van Helsing episodes).

Aleks Paunovic and Jonathan Scarfe - Van Helsing

Julius (Aleks Paunovic) and Axel (Jonathan Scarfe) first catch sight of Nina in Carpe Noctis

VAN HELSING is nominated for Best Dramatic Series

Aleks Paunovic (Julius in 35 episodes) is nominated for Best Lead Performance Dramatic Series (Male) for “Graveyard Smash” (Episode 5.7).

Beverly Huynh, Nikola Stojisavljevic, Karley Schroyen, Evan Couillaud, and Stephanie Shanklin are nominated for Best Costume Design – Dramatic Series for their work on “Lumina Intunecata” (Episode 5.3). Continue reading →

Van Helsing – How The Show Changed Toward The End

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SPOILERS

Paul Johanssen, Gia Crovatin, and Duncan Ollerenshaw

Vampire boss Dimitri (Paul Johanssen) having dinner with his sister Antonasia (Gia Crovatin) in the final episode of the first season. Dr. Sholomenko (Duncan Ollerenshaw) is in the background. In “Carpe Noctis” (Episode 5.6) we learn that Dimitri’s influence extended as far east as Chicago, though he was headquartered in Seattle, possibly because of the weather.

For the first three seasons of VAN HELSING, the life expectancy of the average character was not long. Of the 13 credited characters in the first episode, eight were deceased by the end of the thirty-ninth episode. Some characters were even brought back seemingly for the sole purpose of having them killed. Christopher Heyerdahl‘s character Sam is as much a source of carnage as the vampires, and eventually becomes a vamp himself. (He seemed naturally suited to the vampire lifestyle.) The travels of Vanessa (Kelly Overton) and her tribe were largely restricted to the U.S. Pacific Northwest. They met other tribes of human survivors occasionally, and in the third season managed to get all the way to Denver (where most everybody dies). Vampires developed the ability to move about in daylight (thanks to the researchers at Blak-Tek) and were briefly led by someone called Scar Face, but his brood of vamps was quickly absorbed by The Sisterhood, an ancient society led by ruthless vampires Ivory (Jennifer Cheon Garcia) and Scab (Rowland Pidlubny). The Sisterhood breaches the defenses at Denver killing most of the humans there, then Hansen (Neal McDonough) drops poison gas on the rest of them to keep them from being turned. Vanessa flirts with the dark side and, at the end of Season Three, kills her sister Scarlett (Missy Peregrym). Continue reading →

Ivory’s Quest, Coyote Callie, Vanessa in Dreamland

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VAN HELSING – Thoughts on the end of Season Five – SPOILERS

Jennifer Cheon Garcia

Ivory takes one last look back before heading out in search of the remaining Sisterhood

Callie (Macie Juiles), who was rescued from Seattle’s vampire-infested streets by Vanessa and Mohamed (Trezzo Mahoro) in Episode 1.4, and turned up (sometimes unexpectedly) in nine other episodes, is alive and well and making a living smuggling people into (and probably out of) vampire territory. We had not seen Callie since she was among those left behind in Denver after it was overrun by daywalkers in Episode 4.1. In that episode, Hansen (Neal McDonough) ordered the remaining human population destroyed by poison gas to prevent their being turned. Callie must have somehow survived that.

We meet Callie as she delivers Ivory (Jennifer Cheon-Garcia) into the badlands outside of the Wall that protects D.C. from the vampires and poison clouds beyond. Ivory has told a tearful Jack (Nicole Muñoz) that she must embark on a solo quest to find and assist the remaining sisterhood, whether they be vampire or human. (Jack promised to wait for her.) After saying goodbye to Callie, Ivory draws her sword and strides purposefully toward an unidentified city in the distance (and hopefully into a spinoff). Continue reading →