Special Features



Underworld on its 20th Year Anniversary



By AL J. Vermette



It’s really hard to believe that it’s been 20 years…20 years since the very first Underworld movie was released to theaters. I remember how excited I was to see this movie because although werewolves and vampires have shared the screen together on occasion, we have never seen the two creatures at war before. An idea I’m surprised no one…..not even myself has thought of before and it’s a brilliant one at that. Here we have two of the best-known and most beloved monsters of film, literature, and folklore together and fighting a campaign to the death.


On one side you have the aristocratic vampires, elegant, intelligent, and organized as a society coexisting alongside our world. Then there are the Lycans, (the werewolves) strong, dirty, violent, and hiding outside of not only our perception but also that of the vampires. As far as the vampires know, there are only a handful of Lycans left and they are dealt with by a team of vampire assassins called Death Dealers. It is one of these assassins named Selene that the main story follows as she uncovers a plot to overthrow the vampire hierarchy from within and use their mortal enemy the Lycans to help do it.


The movie was a mix of an action, thriller with a little sprinkle of horror, making it after Blade, one of the very first action-oriented vampire/werewolf movies ever made making a departure for the two species appearing in just a straight-up horror movie. Blade had done this concept brilliantly bending the horror genre into a more action/ adventure heading and Underworld followed this direction to perfection.




The film was the brainchild of writers Kevin Grevioux, Danny McBride, and the film’s director Len Wiseman. The two writers themselves even have parts in the movie with Danny McBride playing one of the vampires and Kevin playing the Lycan known as Raze. When you see this strong bad-ass Lycan, it’s almost hard to imagine that this hulking brute was actually the lead writer of the film. I can’t even think of him sitting behind a computer and putting this thing down on paper because of how scary and intimidating his character was in the film.


Underworld follows the story of Selene, played by Kate Beckinsale, who is one of the vampire’s top Death Dealers and the film's lead character. As I said before, she uncovers a plot within the vampire coven between Kraven, the acting leader of the house of vampires, and Lucian, the leader of the Lycans and the first of their kind. In part of this conspiringly, the Lycan clan is hunting a human named Michael, who unknowingly is the direct descendant of Alexander Corvinus, the original immortal and the father of Marcus and William, the very first true vampire and werewolf. Each in turn became the creatures they are by Marcus being bitten by a bat and his brother a wolf. Although Marcus, the first vampire overall, maintains his human appearance and grows stronger like others of his kind to follow, only unique to only him being the first of his kind, has a set of wings that allows him flight as well as a deadly weapon as well. His brother William after his bite by the wolf became a human-wolf hybrid never again able to return to human form again. Their story is explored more in the follow-up film Underworld: Evolution released three years later.


Selene in her quest to discover the truth about this young man named Michael, follows him to his apartment just before the Lycans attack. It’s her skills as a Death Dealer that get the two out alive but in the battle, Michael is attacked and bitten by Lucian, the oldest and direct spawn of William. Unlike William though who could never again retake human form, Lucian was the result of his own werewolf bloodline due to his mother being bitten by a werewolf while she was pregnant with him. This made Lucian a subspecies of the werewolves called Lycans and gave Lucian the power to transform at will and any of the Lycans he sired afterward.




It is within Michael’s blood and his recessed immortal genes that the Lycans are after him wishing to turn him into a bioweapon to help fight their war with the vampires. As a hybrid creature of both species, he would be faster and stronger than both and a valuable asset to Lycans. Meanwhile, Selene spots Kraven’s treachery to take over the coven permanently and kill the vampire elders, she goes to awaken head elder Viktor, the vampire king, and the only one to be sired directly by Marcus. Viktor is the oldest and strongest of their kind, second only to Marcus, only instead of trusting Selene, Viktor takes Kraven’s side forcing a confrontation by the film's end.


What set Underworld apart from many any other vampire or werewolf movie was the use of the creatures themselves. Taking a cue from Interview With The Vampire, the monsters are the stars of the film and carry the story. Humans are largely ignored in the film as it’s the vampires and Lycan’s story. Even human Michael is soon turned first into a werewolf and later by film end, bitten by Selene herself turning him into the hybrid creature the Lycans wanted all along.


The film's fast pace, action sequences, stylish dress, and creature designs made this movie stand out as its own entity among any vampire or werewolf film that came before. When Underworld starts, it’s the vampires who start off as the film's protagonists and for a lack of better words, the heroes of the story in direct contrast to that of the Lycans who come off as the villains. However at the midpoint of the movie, the world turns and we discover that the Lycans who were once slaves to the vampires and Lucian’s bride-to-be Sonja, who is with child, is killed by Viktor…his own daughter kick-starting the centuries-old war between the two species. We feel sorry for Lucian and discover that he was never the villain in the first place making it a great turn of events.


Anniversary show.​​



Released in September 2003, the film became a hit with horror fans and has since become a cult classic in its own right. Its blend of horror and action with monsters would set the stage for other genre combos to follow like Hellboy, I Frankenstein, Resident Evil, and others. Part of the magic of Underworld, along with its new take on the old myths of both vampires and werewolves, is that the creatures in the film are not the spawn of supernatural forces. There are no fears of crosses, mirrors, stakes, or any other of the Dracula-related weakness in the Underworld vampires. Hell, in one scene Selene looks directly into a mirror and guess what, she can see herself. The only vampire myth carried over here is their fear of sunlight as here it will kill a vampire as in most any other film of its kind.


The werewolves here get the most redo in that in the underworld universe gives us two types of beasts, the werewolf and the Lycan. The werewolf, such as the fore mentioned William, the first of his kind, can never again retake human form. But for Lucian, the subspecies the Lycan, he and others who he turns have to power to turn at will day or night….full moon or not. Where William and the victims he spawned are forever locked within a human/wolf hybrid form with the mindset of a mad beast, Lucian those he turned retain their human mind ever, and Lycan form.


Kate Beckinsale as the vampire assassin Selene is wonderful in the role and carries the movie with not only the power of a great warrior but also the grace and beauty of a woman with a single mission in mind…destroy Lycans at all cost. It is her story arc we follow as she thinks of nothing but killing the enemy, but once meeting Michael, she finds herself almost drawn to him setting itself up for a hint of a romance that would continue in the next movie. Also along the way, she discovers that her surrogate father turned her into a vampire. Viktor has lied to her about who murdered her family. She was told by him that it was the Lycans who killed her loved ones, but in fact it was he all along who murdered them and used the young woman’s own grief as a weapon, turning her into an immortal to fight his war with his enemy.




The movie’s creature design was the work of makeup artist and effects master Patrick Tatopoulos who came up with the look and design for the Lycans. For the werewolf creatures, he really stepped outside of the box and created creatures that were big powerful hairless two-legged beasts, almost cat-like creatures making them unlike any werewolves seen before. In the later films as we see William and his first-generation werewolves, they in turn are much more like traditional werewolves or something is seen in films such as The Howling, Bad Moon or Dog Soldiers since they are the first of their bloodline. For the look of the vampires, they remain mostly human only with bright ice-blue eyes and fangs that grow longer when in battle mode.


Shot on a budget of $22 million, the film used its money wisely putting it into creature and set design and making the most of it. With little CGI, something that would later creep up in later films, but for the original Underworld, practical effects were used…..you know actors in costumes…I know right…how nice to see!


Underworld would go on to become a franchise with four more films followed by one becoming a prequel and an animated short film plus comic books, video games, models, action figures, and more. The film's impact has now lasted 20 years and has devoted fans all over the world, myself one of them. If you have never seen this movie or its sequels and you enjoy horror/ action, vampires, and werewolves, then this is a movie you need to see. I think after writing this, I’m going to pop in my DVD of Underworld and make a big bowl of popcorn.