Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)
The Gist: Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, discovers vampires are planning to take over his country and he makes it his mission to eliminate them.
Politicians & Vampires (Or are they the same thing): Benjamin Walker (Abraham Lincoln), Dominic Cooper (Henry Sturges), Anthony Mackie (Will Johnson), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Mary Todd Lincoln), Rufus Sewell (Adam)
There’s two tones to this movie: blue/black and hazy orange/yellow
My Take: Before he was the president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln was trained by a vampire to hunt and kill other vampires. And in this movie, he was pretty bad ass at it. The flick journeys from Lincoln’s youth, losing his mother to one of the infernal creatures, through his hunting years and into the civil war and the White House. So what can I say about this movie…it was bad. The story was far-fetched, it was dull and too meandering between a vampire movie and Lincoln story. Both of which fell flat because it doesn’t coherently tell either story.
The movie was cliché rich, predictable at every turn, badly written with laughable dialogue and what the hell took the vampires so long to strike back against Lincoln once he started his political career? Why on earth did they wait until he was president and during the civil war? I guess to get the actor into the seasoned appearance of the Lincoln that we all recognize…I don’t know, maybe I missed something in the story. And how many times did they have to drop that Lincoln was honest; honestly. The one redeeming quality of this flick were the vampire make-up effects. They looked pretty freakin’ cool and creepy like a vampire should.
Final Thoughts: I’m glad I watched this on Netflix but I’m not glad I watched it. I didn’t really care for the approach of using a historical figure like Lincoln to tell this tale. I am aware that it based on a book but that doesn’t redeem it. I think a vampire tale set in the civil war could be interesting and I’m sure there are such stories but this one should be avoided.
Dawning Creates 
I’m tired of PG-13 Vampire movies – how can you kill a vampire and have NO BLOOD! No more sparkly, glowing ember, vampire deaths for me.
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I agree. We need a good vampire movie, with scary ass vamps. Priest had interesting vampires. I wish they would make a movie of David Wellington’s 13 Bullets.
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