Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

*** (out of 4)

This horror/action film sets up to tell the true story of Abraham Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) who witnessed his mother getting killed by a vampire so he dedicates his life to stopping the bloodsucking creatures. ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER might have a silly title but it's actually a fairly ambitious little movie that really took me by surprise. Going by the trailer you'd think that this film was just going to try and do a BUBBA HO TEP and takes a historical figure and make some cheap thrills out of him killing vampires. There's no doubt that the "cheap thrill" aspect is on full display here but the film actually goes a bit further by tying all of these events into common knowledge surrounding Lincoln's life. Not only do we get the vampire stuff but it's pretty well blended in with various historical truths like Lincoln becoming a lawyer, marrying Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and we go all the way up to the Civil War. The final thirty-minutes actually take place during the Civil War and the way the writers used slavery and the vampires was pretty interesting. With that said, I really hope no one goes into this movie expecting historical accuracies (they'd be crazy right?). Walker actually does a very good job at playing Lincoln. I thought he was very believable playing the good soul as well as the action hero. Dominic Cooper was excellent as his mentor and Anthony Mackie is also very good in his role as a black man who aids Lincoln. Even Winstead is good in her part even though the screenplay doesn't do her character much justice. The one major issue I had with the film was the incredibly bad CGI effects. I thought there were some that was so bad that you'd expect to be seeing them in a SyFy movie. Just take a look at the scene where Lincoln in chopping the tree or a really embarrassing sequence dealing with horses. The slow motion action scenes also weren't all that entertaining. With that said, I really liked the way director Timur Bekmambetov built up the atmosphere of the 1800's. I was really surprised how how authentic everything was and I think this is a reason why the CGI looks even worse. ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER should have been a really, really bad movie but I think for the most part they got it right and those with a little knowledge of the real history around the war should find the touches interesting.