In observance of that autumn spell when we celebrate the primal, compulsive instinct of fear, Rainestorm highlights 31 days of spooky scares to season the eerie atmosphere of Halloween.

This week we pay obligatory homage to the studio that brought some of finest thrills and greatest cinematic cheese to the 20th century. It’s Universal Monster Week!

Reign of terror: 2004

The horror… the horror: By most accounts, including mine, Van Helsing is a terrible movie. Overlong, cacophonous, and riddled with cut-rate CGI, as well as chaotic editing and cinematography. Yet it’s also kind of fun. The performances are over-the-top ridiculous. Richard Roxburgh is clearly having a ball as the cartoonish Count Dracula. Savoring his lines as he rolls them deliciously off his tongue, his dramatics are a wonderful train wreck to behold. Hugh Jackman acquits himself nicely as Rome’s appointed hunter of all things monstrous and supernatural. Kate Beckinsale slathers on her own silly Slavic accent as the ass-kicking heroine, all while wearing ludicrously tight-fitting pants. Shuler Hensley, unfortunately, takes himself far, far too seriously as the whiny Frankenstein monster. It is David Wenham, however, who steals the show. Playing Q to Jackman’s nineteenth-century James Bond, he injects some nebbishy yet nimble humor into the already campy proceedings.

Halloween haunt: If nothing else, Stephen Sommers designs a nice Universal monster movie milieu. From the dark streets of London to the snow-covered mountains and gray skies of Transylvania, from Victor Frankenstein’s laboratory to Dracula’s castle, Van Helsing paints a complete portrait of Halloween ambience.

Tastiest treat: Not to let any bad cliché go to waste, I absolutely treasure the fact that Sommers lets a cliff-plummeting stagecoach, rigged with explosives, erupt on impact.

Check the candy for: The Court of Miracles, which was used in the original Frankenstein, Dracula, and Wolf Man movies, is used here for Van Helsing’s initial showdown with Dracula’s Brides, and is also featured on the Universal Studios tour.

Devilish discourse: “Actually, it’s seven men. Parts of them, anyway.”

Goes great with: House of Dracula (1945). The inspiration for Sommers’ creation is clear in this film as well as its predecessor, House of Frankenstein. However, Van Helsing is probably more similar in tone to this final sequel in the Universal monster movie series. A little extra trivia, Lon Chaney’s wolf man, the only creature to be played by a single actor throughout the entire series, is also the only character to enjoy a happy ending.