Say what you will about Van Helsing 2004; hate it, love it, be indifferent, But the All-Hallow's masquerade ball went sooooo hard and it had zero right to do so! It's a fun, campy, monster mash movie with wonderfully dated ( and expensive) cgi and non-stop action meant to be a popcorn flick one takes out to watch around spooky season. And it has this* chef's kiss* GORGEOUS 6 minute sequence plopped arbitrarily in the second act, which unexpectedly surpasses nearly every other ball in the last 30+ years of film( notable exception being the Cinderella 2015 ball) for literally no reason other than to be dramatic af.
Like feast your eyes on this Gothic masterpiece!!! Who doesn't want to immediately live in this picture?!??
They used those candles with oil in them so that they would have real candles, real string orchestra( I believe), probably around 100 real life extras( something which is tragically absent in modern film), said extras are all in beautiful fully decked-out costumes( which are in luxuriously dark colours, but nearly no fully black, another thing you cannot say for much modern cinema), REAL CIRQUE DU SOLEIL PERFORMERS for all the acrobatics!!!! Hell, instead of filming in a sound stage, where they could control the reverb and the acoustics and the size of the set and the bloody lighting ( they apparently had a heck of a time emulating the firelight for this sequence) and the temperature( it's very cold in stone churches!) better, they filmed in a Baroque church in Prague! As I said, peak dramatic splendour, jfc...
Think about that a second...They filmed a vampire masquerade in a Baroque Catholic Church( St. Nicholas' in Lesser Town, if you were curious) with amazing over-the-top acoustics and marble statues and real, tiled floors and marble pillars and a choir loft which they very much utilized, covered the pipe organ and the altar with a grand brocade curtain so it wouldn't be so obviously a, you know, a church! And there's a gold gilt elevated and canopied pulpit into which they put two vampire kiddies for, again, the sake of being dramatic.
And the costumes! They remind me of the 25th anniversary Phantom of the Opera Masquerade costumes. Same quality, like they're old, well-cared-for costumes pulled out of a warehouse, instead of fast industry churn-outs. With lots of trim and colour and masks and lace and feathers and..just...ugh.. they are all perfect! Just look at all the head pieces on the ladies and the hats on all the gentleman ( save Dracula of course) and the powdered wigs on the musicians. ANNNNDD! The dresses are historically correct!!!!!! It's the 80's bustle era! Nobody does the 80's bustle era in film anymore and it's a bummer. Oh and one other thing! Anna's ( and other women's) hair, at least here in the ball, is also historically accurate because it's all pinned up! None of those fucken modern beachwaves at a ball! Everybody's got updo's!
Gah, I swear, Dracula in his gold cloak really does things to me in this scene!
By the way, the acrobatics are bonkers in here for just background stuff!! Especially the random guys on unicycles and the dude playing the violin whilst standing on a ball...Like....WHAT?
Anyways, all this to say, that this masquerade ball feels sooo real and tangible and because of that it blows every other film out of the water, and no, I will not change my mind!!!!!
Here's a few more gifs, bcuz, why the hell not, this scene is sexy as fuu*ck?
Alright I need to go to bed now.
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A rather interesting take on relatability, this (for Renaissance fashions) unusually loose suede doublet with more than a little nod to 1980s rock chic was designed by Jenny Beavan for Dougray Scott's Prince Henry in 𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓, the 1998 take on 𝑪𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒂.
A bit sidelined, it turned up again on an uncredited extra as a huntsman in the television adaptation of Philippa Gregory's 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑶𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑩𝒐𝒍𝒆𝒚𝒏 𝑮𝒊𝒓𝒍 in 2003.
This costume was recently auctioned off by Kerry Taylor Auctions. See more details about the auction, the doublet, and where else this piece was used at Bit.ly/TudEliz223
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I felt the need to actually doodle the dress Chloe is wearing in her portrait 🩵🤍 I’m not much of a designer but this turned out pretty well, I don’t think it’s a very complicated dress? It’s very simple, a mix between the OG and live action dresses.
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