Review of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) by Quincytheodore — 23 Jun 2012

Apparently Abe Lincoln and Buffy have more things in common that we thought, a reminder that vampires, much like their mythical relative, zombies, can be shoehorned into pretty much anything. Such a strange concept this was, it's bound to be silly to match a president with blood-sucking half albinos, yet there's an appeal to the axe wielding kills, a true artistic butchery prowess that I have yet to enjoy much on cinema. Yes, the justified axe murdering is the star in this confusing horror sometimes comedy flick.

The plot depicts Abe's life from his traumatic childhood to his awkward part time job as a vampire hunter. It's rather predictable, with a woman falls madly in love with a young drifter, and the hunter is torn between his double life and his love. There's daunting secrets, conspiracy and such, but they are pretty flat. You're here to see people get slaughtered with axe, and Abe (Benjamin Walker), a tall hulking vengeful man, delivers just so. He has that idealist and innocent look, which works quite well on building a hero more than a president.

However the movie stands flimsily at the border on heavy subject, slavery, and ridiculousness, narcissistic vampires, who while thankfully do not sparkle, but strangely are resistant to sunlight. There's unnecessary corny over-the-top background for these blood sucking pseudo monsters, they are not as secretive as they should be as an organization whose agenda is creating utopia for their kind. Pretty much every vampire who's confronted will hiss in an exaggerated scary face, I really doubt they can survive that far if they're that flashy.

The action is definitely good, some of the creative ways to dispatch vampires are joyful to watch. It takes heavily on post-300 slow mo critical shots, which is good since the motion is quite smooth. Its worst flaw is it tries too hard on taking serious issues in lighter tone, thus creating an unbalanced story which is a tad too dark to be humorous and too silly to be thoughtful. If everything else fails, rest assure that between the uninteresting bits, there'll be decapitated vampires.