'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter'

Have ax, will kill: 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter'

Published: Friday, June 22, 2012
By Clint O'Connor, The Plain Dealer
You hear it all the time: "Why aren't there more movies about legendary presidents killing a slew of vampires with an ax?"
If only.
You probably need to be in the right mood, if there is one, for "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," the new executive-branch slasher film that opens nationwide Friday. If nothing else, it's a winning title that sprang from the mind of the man who also gave us "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," author Seth Grahame-Smith. (His Jane Austen-and-the-living-dead saga is slated to become a film next year.)
Because we are so oversaturated with vampires in movies and television, you would assume this film would need to offer some fresh twist on the bloodsuckers. But the gimmick here is Lincoln -- an honest, well-spoken serial avenger. The vampires are not that interesting. Whenever they kick into I'm-going-to-bite-you-big-time mode, they all start looking the same, more like fractured piranhas than undead devils.

In a sort of History Channel-"You Are There" hybrid, we travel back to the 1800s, when young Abe Lincoln sees a vampire killing his mother. Seething with anger, grown-up Abe (a nice straight-faced turn by Benjamin Walker) swears to avenge her death, but first he must train in the ways of killing vampires with his new friend Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper). Soon Abe is an ax-twirling vigilante, and the blood starts splattering, in 3-D.
"Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" stays true to the Lincoln legacy. We meet Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), witness the outbreak of the Civil War and learn the secret of the Confederacy (slaves actually provided a steady supply of victims for vampires who now seek to conquer the North). There are even brief appearances by Harriet Tubman and Jefferson Davis. Vampires also played a key role at the battle of Gettysburg. Who knew?
All of this is fun, and if the filmmakers had ratcheted up the laugh meter, "Vampire Hunter" could have been a campy comedy, or, short of that, a so-bad-it's-good novelty. Unfortunately, it falls somewhere in between. Once the initial joke wears off -- and it's a good one, with Honest Abe concealing his ax in his long coat -- you're left with repetitive fights that are shortchanged by shabby-looking special effects. At one point, Abe chases a vampire in the middle of a horse stampede. I've seen better horses in video games.
20th Century Fox brought in Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, who is known for his vampire movies, and Grahame-Smith adapted the screenplay himself, so it seemed as if the studio had the right team in place. This is Grahame-Smith's second vampire movie this year (he also wrote the "Dark Shadows" script). Perhaps he's just vamped out.