Kate Beckinsale arrived at the premiere of her latest movie in a white backless dress that would have had Dracula baring his fangs in glee.
The actress, who plays a leather-clad vampire-hunter in Van Helsing, the big-budget gothic horror film opening in London this week, stole the limelight from understated co- star Hugh Jackman at the Los Angeles premiere.
X-Men star Jackman, who plays monsterkiller Van Helsing, turned up in jeans and a jacket. In the film, he tracks down Dracula, the Wolfman, Robert Louis Stevenson's Mr Hyde - played by Robbie Coltrane - and, for good measure, Frankenstein's monster. Last night Jackman seemed particularly impressed by a 6in plastic model of his own character.
Pearl Harbor star Beckinsale, 31, has previously tackled vampires in last year's Underworld.
Studio bosses fervently hope that her latest movie is a big hit and can compete against Homeric blockbuster Troy, starring Brad Pitt as Achilles.
But the omens are perhaps not entirely promising. Last summer, another film combining major figures from multiple Victorian or Edwardian stories, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, flopped at the box office.
