abraham lincoln vampire hunter

Four score and seven years ago (give or take a few decades), Abraham Lincoln wasn't just a champion of civil rights — he also slaughtered vampires. That's the skewed re-imagining of our 16th president's life in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, the adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith's novel. Benjamin Walker plays Abe, a young man bent on avenging the vampire murder of his mother. When the mysterious Henry (Dominic Cooper) comes to Abraham's aid during a botched attempt to kill his mother's attacker, Henry decides to train Abraham to be a vampire hunter. Wielding his trusty axe, Abe the vampire slayer slaughters the monsters all over 19th-century America by night and pursues his political career by day. Before you head to the theater, find out which elements make the bloody, action-packed thriller movie worth seeing — along with the concerns that may keep you away.

• The fight scenes are exciting. The best parts of the movie are when Abe goes head to head with the vampires. He's a badass when he's got an axe in his hand, and the fighting is The Matrix-style, only with blood splatters.
• But . . . The Matrix did it better 13 years ago.
• Dominic Cooper and Anthony Mackie are fantastic. Cooper plays Henry, Abraham's vampire-killing guru, and he's smooth, charismatic, and the most interesting character in the movie. Mackie plays Abe's childhood best friend and eventual partner in vampire exterminating, and he's so watchable that I wished he'd had more scenes.
• But . . . Cooper and Mackie aren't the stars of this movie; Benjamin Walker is. And while Walker is attractive and certainly looks the part, he's just a bit too bland. It's partially the way the character is written; when Abe's not axing the crap out of the undead, his personality is as wooden as the trees he chops down.

To find out the other ups and downs of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, just read more.

If you thought that author Seth Grahame-Smith's genre mashup novels like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies would make for cheesy films, then you may be surprised by the electrifying Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter trailer. In the adaptation of Grahame-Smith's novel, our 16th president is re-imagined as a man with a passion for more than politics — he's a vampire-killing machine. This version of Lincoln (played by newcomer Benjamin Walker) has been motivated to kill the vampires who haunt America because his grandfather and mother were victims of the supernatural monsters. Politics comes into it when Lincoln learns that the slave trade is perpetuated by vampires, who are using the people for food, so Lincoln sets to end slavery and thus cut off the vampire food supply.

While I'm still pretty skeptical that this film could come out still feeling gimmicky, the trailer is actually pretty intense. Walker plays Lincoln like we've never seen him before: fierce, agile, and seemingly unstoppable. I'm far more curious about this movie now than I was before, so to see if you feel the same, watch the trailer after the jump.

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First there was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the Seth Grahame-Smith novel that's currently being adapted into a film starring Natalie Portman. Then there was Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, penned by Ben H. Winters, but no word of a movie version just yet. However, Tim Burton has his eye on the latest in the monstrous-twist-on-an-old-favorite genre, with plans to turn Grahame-Smith's Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, into a major motion picture. Got all that?

A little research will show you that Grahme-Smith and Winters hardly have the monopoly on the market. Classics like Anna Karenina, Emma, and even Sherlock Holmes have been inundated with the likes of zombies and beyond. While I thought the Pride and Prejudice adaptation was clever, and the making of another vampire movie is more than understandable, I'm still not sold on the whole trend. However, it doesn't look like it's going away, and if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Check out a few of my own ideas on how your most beloved stories could be tweaked with the help of a few creepy creatures:

• Romeo, Juliet, and Robots: The centuries-long feud between the House of Montague and House of Capulet is only worsened by Romeo's discovery that Juliet's entire family are actually androids plotting to take down Verona. Romeo and Juliet still fall in love, but take their own lives upon the realization that Juliet's database isn't capable of processing the glitch (aka, feelings) in her system.
• Gatsby vs. Godzilla: The gap between East Egg and West Egg just got a whole lot bigger. Will Gatsby find the time to throw his lavish parties, and save Daisy from Japan's most threatening monster?
• The Adventures of Huckleberry's Finns: Floating down the Mississippi is a whole lot easier (and more complicated!) when you're half boy, half shark.

Two more ideas if you read more