For almost as long as we've had motion pictures, we've also had vampire stories.

And rightly so, the tale of Dracula is a story of fear and suspense, and it's been

told over and over again during the last century. Theater productions, early black and white

films, and every successive film since the 1930s has proven that our love for the story

of Dracula is as undying as the monster himself.

One of the results of this obsession with Dracula is that we often ignore or forget the

other major players in that story. Mina Murray is the powerful heroic woman who spends

the bulk of the story fighting to destroy Dracula rather than wallowing in self-pity. Quincy

Morris sacrifices himself to defeat the monster, and Jonathan Harker, Mina's eventual

husband, strikes one of the killing blows. The novel is full of characters, but all seem

to fade into the shadow cast by the vampire lord himself. All except for Abraham Van

Helsing, that is. Over the decades his character has received a good amount of attention from

fans of the book, and honestly, how can you blame them? He was intelligent, brave, and

skilled in his craft. And in a lot of ways, Van Helsing represented something we all aspire

to be. It's a side effect of growing up with stories of creatures who want to hurt us.

If there really is something living under the bed, or in the closet, or in that dark

damp corner of the basement, and shouldn't someone care enough to protect us? If these

creatures are the antagonists of our nightmares, then surely there are also protagonists, the

heroes, the champions, those brave souls who are tasked with fighting back. Van Helsing

was a fictional construct of course, but his character echoes an ancient widespread belief

that can be found in some form or another within many full tales. It seems that no matter

what the monster might be, there are always those who fight them. Amazingly, those hunters

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