Ryan McNeil
It’s not necessary to be intelligent. However, if you aren’t intelligent you must be entertaining.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER introduces us to Honest Abe as a young lad. After his father gets involved in an altercation where a young black boy was being whipped, The Lincolns find themselves on the outs with a powerful plantation owner named Jack Barts. Unbeknownst to The Lincolns, this is a bad situation since Barts is in fact a vampire. He extracts his revenge by attacking Lincoln’s mother, infecting her in a way that will kill her slowly.
As Lincoln grows, he does so with the desire to exact his revenge on Barts (not knowing exactly what Barts is). His first attempt goes awry, but Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) is saved when a stranger named Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper) intervenes. Turns out Sturgess knows a thing or two about vampires, and is willing to train Lincoln to be a vampire hunter if he abides by certain rules.
With his training complete, Lincoln sets out to Springfield, Illinois to study law and await instructions from Sturgess. While he waits, he meets Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and falls bumblingly into love – defying one of Sturgess’ prime rules. It’s also here that he is reunited with the black boy who was being whipped. His name is William Johnson (Anthony Mackie), and he becomes fast friends with the man who saved him all those years ago.
Right as things seem to be going their best – friends by his side and love in his life – Lincoln starts getting orders from Sturgess. Sure enough, these orders eventually involve killing Barts, and this action gets the attention of a very powerful vampire named Adam (Rufus Sewell). After Adam illustrates that vampires are one of the driving forces behind southern slavery (they’re a source of food), he threatens Lincoln’s entire life if he doesn’t stop following Sturgess’ orders.
What’s the future president to do?
Let’s not pussyfoot around this- ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER is a dumb film. There’s no other way to put it. It’s a dumb concept turned adapted into a dumb movie. The question we must ask ourselves is whether it is simply dumb, or in fact dumb fun?
The vampire angle isn’t what tips the scales. When we consider the fact that 19th century America was still very much being settled by Europeans, we must remind ourselves that all of their European customs and superstitions would have come over on those boats with them. With that in mind, the entire concept of the southern colonies being peppered with vampires is actually quite clever (and likewise their want for slaves as food more than labour).
Another fun detail is the revisionist history. Seth Grahame-Smith – he who has brought us Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – wrote the screenplay for the film based on his novel of the same name. I read the novel earlier this year, and was quite smitten with the way he wove the children of the night into actual historical events. In the novel, Lincoln is even close friends with Edgar Allen Poe, whose taste for the macabre and mysterious death fit the subject perfectly. Historical fiction has told us many tales over the years, but few this inventive, so it’s hard for me to blame the story either.
It’s not even like I can say this film looks cheap – quite the opposite in fact. There are plenty of moments where the effects are easy to spot, namely where horses and legions of soldiers are concerned. And the use of 3-D in this film is pretty gimmicky (at least one bullet is shot right at us, and a few vampires snarl their way out of the screen). Overall though, the film is pretty handsome. All of the rooms and towns look like the real deal, and everything is rather bright and crisp. So I can’t even say that the film is shoddily executed.
To me, what makes the film feel dumb is it’s tone. The heavy moments come with such earnestness, the scares are drowned with schlock. The historical queues are handled with the subtlety of sledgehammers, and there isn’t a single surprise. None of the twists feel like twists, and a final plot device involving “a railroad” feels downright ham-fisted. This is a movie that actually has the stones to have a vampire throw a horse at Lincoln! By the time we get to the final fight between Lincoln and Adam, his growling of “Miss-ter Preh-si-dennnt!” cements just how dumb the film has become. This is a B movie that has somehow talked its way into a $70M budget, but isn’t at all interested in trying to earn that back.
So yes, ABRAHAM LINCOLN is a dumb film – but for my money, it was indeed “dumb fun”. That tone that I just described that kills the film’s chances of being anything more? I had a hunch that was coming. I’d seen WANTED and knew the director’s style. Not only that, but I knew there was no way a film that posed one of America’s greatest leaders in a league with Buffy Summers was going to try to be subtle or subversive. This movie is head-shakingly, chest-laughingly idiotic…and that can make for true entertainment.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER is a dumb movie – but I did enjoy every dumb moment.
Havent seen it and I don’t care to. I hope you were invited to a free screening rather than paying full price…
I wouldn’t twist your arm and tell you it’s something you *should* see. I was drawn to it after loving the book so much. Watched it for a lark, no other reason.
I like the first act or so. It’s pure dumb fun, I was actually laughing at the horse stampede scene. It’s totally over the top but it’s good.
The problem is that when it starts to get serious and try to put historical facts into the movie. If the movie is called Abraham Lincoln, the Vampire Hunter, historical accuracy isn’t really the top priority to the movie, they should just let the silliness continue. Instead it really drags the whole movie down.
BTW, what’s the point of the Dominic Cooper character? He trained Lincoln to be kill vampires, then he wanted him to stop? There are a couple of more questions but I will end up spoiling it, so I won’t ask here.
I don’t actually remember Sturgess telling Lincoln to stop – remind me?
You might as well spoil away while you’re at it, I think this is a safe place to discuss such things where this film is concerned.
When Lincoln decides to wage war against the South, Sturgess comes and say he shouldn’t be doing this and ask him to stop.
Anyway, my question is this: Near the End, Sturgess asks Lincoln to become immortal just like him, so they could do good and defeat evil (assuming vampires), but didn’t the movie state that vampires can’t kill vampires, so why asks Lincoln to become a vampire?
I think the idea comes more from wanting someone else to help him train more vampire hunters and act like a general, the same way he did for the Union Army…as opposed to being the one to actually do the killing.
Nice post, Ryan! I’ll try to check this out when it opens, depending on my economy haha. Maybe I’ll rent it later.