Revealing mistake: When Carl throws the new canister of arrows to Van Helsing during the vampire attack on the town, you can tell that when the camera cuts, Hugh Jackman just tossed the canister up in the air and grabbed it as it fell. The motion and angle at which is falls doesn't match up to the shot where Carl throws it. (00:26:00)
Continuity mistake: Anna wears high-heeled boots during the movie, but during some action scenes, they are flat-bottomed boots.
Continuity mistake: When Anna and Van Helsing are talking in the castle after the first vampire attack, the weapon Van Helsing is holding shifts from pointing over her shoulder to pointing across his face. (00:38:20)
Continuity mistake: As revealed in the DVD commentary, the character Anna's hair changes somewhat in some scenes. Noticeable is the very slight changes that occur before she finds out her brother is a werewolf. An original mistake was already corrected, but I assure you it's there. It's just hard to see.
Other mistake: When Igor tortures the Werewolf behind the canvas, both of them can be seen as shadows, meaning a source of light is creating these images. When Igor hits the Werewolf with his staff, sparks can be seen through the canvas. First, as the image is a projection, the sparks would appear somewhere else on the canvas, and not exactly on the position of the staff's projected image. Even if the images are just silhouettes, the angle of the shot and the visible pillars indicate a much larger size then Igor really is. Second, such an intense source of light would alter the projection of the shadows a lot, not just a little bit in front of the Werewolf. In the case of silhouettes, they would completely disappear, as the source of light is between the 2 actors, and not at the side of them.
Continuity mistake: As Anna investigates the noise at night, her grip on the lantern keeps moving from horizontal in the front shots to vertical in the chase shots. (00:39:45)
Visible crew/equipment: When Van Helsing and Anna swing up in the balcony with the rope and Van Helsing pushes Anna against the wall, you can see a shadow move away on Van Helsing's left side. They are supposed to be alone on the balcony and the shadow doesn't match their movements. (01:23:40)
Continuity mistake: When we get to Anna, right before she stabs Aleera, we can see traces of the concrete under the snow above her. Two shots later the snow is totally covering the concrete. (01:49:50)
Revealing mistake: When the baby vampire lands on the bride's hand and then flies off her arm movements seem funny as if there was actually nothing there and she had to pretend something landed and then flew off. (00:54:50)
Continuity mistake: After Aleera has grabbed Sara and Van Helsing runs after to the edge of the cliff looking for them, we see him holding his hand to his wound. When it cuts to Carl and the Frankenstein Monster getting to him we see him placing his hand on the wound again. (01:18:05)
Audio problem: In the scene where the monster saves Anna by knocking down the last Bride, there is one shot where he turns to look at Anna framed in the window. His right leg support makes the hissing sound without any steam coming out of it.
Continuity mistake: After Velkan and the Werewolf fall off the cliff, the shot changes to where we can see the area where they hit the water. The ripples are obviously farther to the left from where they should be. (00:22:00)
Visible crew/equipment: When Dracula says "You can't kill me, Victor... I'm already dead!" in the beginning, pay attention. As the camera dramatically moves towards the two men, you can see the shadow of the camera appear on the lower half of Victor's face. It's not Dracula's shadow, because it appears after Dracula moves right in front of him, and perfectly coincides with the camera movement. There's also a brief flash of lightning, and the lightning shows that the shadow is very "boxy," unlike a human shadow.
Continuity mistake: After killing Dr. Frankenstein, Dracula has blood on his lips. After he uses his hand to wipe the blood away, no blood is on his hand.
Continuity mistake: When Dr. Frankenstein asks Dracula "What purpose?", the doctor's hairstyle changes. (00:04:10)
Continuity mistake: When the movie begins and the villagers are raiding the castle, Dr. Frankenstein tries to sneak through a basement door. Dracula produces an explosion and Doc turns his head away. From the opposite angle it's still facing forward.
Answer: Gabriel is the true name of the character described elsewhere as the Left Hand of God, responsible for Dracula's original death. Dracula uses this to try to remind Van Helsing of their history together. The implication is that Van Helsing is actually the archangel Gabriel, credited with (among other things) announcing the pending birth of Christ to Mary his mother, Joseph his father, and Elizabeth mother of John the Baptist.
Phoenix