Review: ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER (2012)

by Trey Lawson - celluloidsheep.wordpress.com

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Best Bad Quote: If vengeance is all you seek, we will never be able to save mankind. Fight this war with me, not for one man but for the world…Mr. President.

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In case you hadn’t figured it out, this is a movie in which Abraham Lincoln, 16^th President of the United States, leads a secret life killing vampires. In other words, don’t come into this looking for historical accuracy or anything resembling a serious approach to the characters. Instead, think of this as kind of an R-rated cartoon. Scary and suspenseful at times, never going out of its way to be too realistic or beholden to the facts. In the alternate (secret?) world concocted by author/screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith, Lincoln is forced to confront a secret vampire underworld at an early age and is persuaded to take up arms against the undead. Thus, the public life described in textbooks, historical dramas, and biographies is revealed as something like a secret identity which obscures his real goal of ridding America of vampires. This means you get to see Lincoln do all those Lincoln-ish things like practice law, fight slavery, and lead the Union into the Civil War, but it all happens in between scenes of Abraham Lincoln killing vampires.

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Visually the film looks something like a cross between a Civil War photograph and an old Hammer horror flick. However, the cinematography reinforces the cartoonish nature of the premise by being deliberately unrealistic. This is most prominently done with the kind of slow motion-fast motion action sequences made famous by the films of Zack Snyder. This has admittedly become an overused technique, but in this case I think it is mostly effective. Lincoln’s “axe-fu” is enjoyably anachronistic, with the slow motion spinning/twirling of the weapon reminding me, of all things, of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian. The vampire designs are fun, and remind me a lot of various vampire movies from the late 70s & 80s. There’s a little of Nosferatu in there, and a little bit of Lost Boys. What they most resemble though are the vampires from the original Fright Night – demonic, with a mouth full of fangs. Of course in this film this is accomplished mostly through digital enhancements. Overall there is a lot of CGI in the movie, from some the vampires to flying blood and gore to a fight in the midst of a stampede. A lot of it, especially the stampede, doesn’t look photorealistic. Yet part of the reason for that is that the actions being performed are so over the top that, for me at least, it would have been unbelievable no matter how detailed the effects. Does that make it forgivable? Perhaps not, but it didn’t bug me too much during the movie. I don’t think it’s a matter of lowered expectations though. Sure it could have been better, I think I simply expected a certain level of cartoonish stylization from a movie about Abraham Lincoln killing vampires.

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Lincoln is ably played by Benjamin Walker. He definitely looks the part (also at times looking like a young Liam Neeson), and he is able to transition from the boyish naivete of young Abe to the steely killer of monsters and, when necessary, the passionate leader and statesman. Dominic Cooper plays Abe’s vampire hunting trainer with a surprisingly manic intensity. Much of his dialogue is peppered with cliches as he teaches Lincoln the lessons of a world inhabited by darkness, but I took those cliches to be delivered with a self-aware tongue planted firmly in cheek. This also carries over to the vampire characters, who balance a sincere delivery of their lines with a kind of exaggerated manner appropriate for a group of Confederate vampires. The best of the bunch is New Zealand actor Marton Csokas as the grotesque Jack Barts.  He delivers an eccentric performance that is equal parts creepy and funny. Anthony Mackie and Jimmi Simpson are effective as Lincoln’s other associates, although Mackie never gets as much to do as I would like and there are a few moments that felt motivated by plot rather than by any natural development of character. This is also true of Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Mary Todd – she is not bad in the role (if a bit anachronistic), but there are scenes that feel as though important character moments had been omitted. My biggest complaint is the virtual non-presence of Alan Tudyk as Stephen Douglass, Lincoln’s political and romantic rival. Tudyk looks good in the role (such that it is), and plays it with a touch of weirdness that implies more could be going on with the character. Yet after a few scenes he disappears, which left me very disappointed. The performances are sort of across the board, with Walker and Winstead especially delivering very sincere performances and the other supporting and peripheral characters playing things broader and more cartoon-like. I don’t mean to say that the performances go out of their way to be funny. Rather, the silliness of the dialogue and situations just kept reminding me of the silliness of the fact that I was watching Abraham Lincoln hunting vampires.

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Regarding the approach to vampire mythology, the film picks and chooses from the laundry list of powers and weaknesses, just as it does with the historical elements. These vampires can at least somewhat endure sunlight. The film doesn’t address this directly, but there are some bits which at least acknowledge it. A sign on a pharmacy run by a vampire clearly advertises a new potent sunblock, and in one sequence a gang of vampires wear hats and bandanas over their faces in the daylight. In any case, the sunlight weakness was always more of a cinematic convention than a hard and fast rule of vampire myth. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula the title character was merely weakened by daylight and has no problem going about during the day – the death by sunlight angle can be traced to F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu. However, I was disappointed that the vampires never visibly transform into bats or wolves. Instead, the only physical transformation shown onscreen is to become invisible. This isn’t the first time that ability has been attributed to them, and it is used to good effect in the fight scenes, but I would have liked to see a more animal transformation. In any case, their appearance and behavior are close enough to traditional vampires that, along with the iconic appearance of the title character, there is no doubt that you are watching Abraham Lincoln fighting vampires.

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Is this a perfect movie? Hell no. Is it a good movie? That’s a bit subjective, but for the most part I would say yes. I hate the idea that there is a “right way” or a “wrong way” to watch a movie, but I do feel that in the case of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter you can’t expect to take it too seriously. Yes, there are some gestures toward metaphor and social commentary with the connection of the vampires to slavery in the South, but they are never developed enough to serve as much more than plot. This is, at its heart, a horror-exploitation flick with a big budget and a quirky sense of humor. Abe-sploitation, if you will, combined with a capitalization on the ongoing vampire fad in film, television, and literature. It goes on a bit too long, and some of the plot threads never develop as much as I would like, but it has a few good scares, some entertaining action set pieces, and solid performances. Don’t be afraid to laugh – it may seem inappropriate, what with all the blood, violence, and intense music, but it’s okay. You’re not laughing at the movie, you’re laughing with it. After all, you’re watching Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

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Rating:

3 out of 5 Leaping Lincolns

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