Van Helsing is one of our most venerable vampire hunters, and he’s been played by everyone from Peter Cushing to Anthony Hopkins to Hugh Jackman. Now the Syfy Channel and playwright Neil LaBute are giving the character a slight reboot, by creating a female version of the character, Vanessa Helsing, and dropping her in a dystopian future! We’ve rounded up some of the highlights from the show’s San Diego Comic-Con panel below!
The Van Helsing panel made a strong case that their show will not be your typical vampire show. The series, helmed by showrunner/playwright Neil LaBute, follows Vanessa Helsing after wakes up in a near-future, vampire-riddled dystopia, with little idea of how she got there. One thing she does know, though, is that her daughter is nowhere to be found.
The show stars True Blood’s Kelly Overton, and she was on hand for the panel along with costars Jonathan Scarfe and Christopher Heyerdahl, along with showrunner Neil LaBute who called in from Germany, and executive producers Simon Barry, Chad Oakes, and Mike Frislev. The show tries to apply science to vampirism (as much as possible) and has also created a credible vampiric world, where there are different types of vampires offering at different levels of class and societal acceptance. The most innovative point, however? Apparently this Helsing can turn her vampire prey human again – by biting them.
The clips from the show are apparently more reminiscent of The Walking Dead than Overton’s previous show (we’ll add the trailer as soon as we can) featuring lots of action and ass-kicking. Overton said that in addition to her usual exercise regiment of boxing, she “bulked up the weights, to get as strong as I could” and added “I went back to Ripley for this.” Using Sigourney Weaver as a guide can only lead to good things!
The show is getting a strong push from the Syfy network, including a commercial-free airing of their pilot on July 31st, right after Sharknado 4. After that debut, the show will begin airing on September 23rd. Collider interviewed the cast in a fun clip below:
[via Bleeding Cool, THR, and Collider!]
