Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012): ***

Politician by day, vampire slayer by night, Abraham Lincoln pulls in some long hours in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, who also wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the film begins with a young Abraham stopping a slaver from beating his friend William. The plantation owner Jack Barts (Marton Csokas) punishes the Lincolns by attacking Abraham’s mother Nancy (Robin McLeavy), killing her and setting Abraham on a course of vengeance. Nine years later and after an unsuccessful attack on Barts, who is revealed to be a vampire, Abraham (Benjamin Walker) is taken under Henry Sturges’s (Dominic Cooper) tutorage. Henry teaches him how to kill vampires and about the master vampire Adam (Rufus Sewell) who owns a plantation in New Orleans, supplying the Southern vampires with the blood of slaves. Abraham must avenge his mother and win the Civil War to stop the vampires from taking over the United States.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter lives up the expectations of its title: it’s goofy action-packed nonsense and it is quite fun for the most part. Abe forgoes guns, relying on a good old silver-coated axe to dispatch the vampires. The fights are carried out with flair: Abe weaves between the vampires’ flailing attacks and cleaves his enemies with a single swing, black blood arching across the screen. Director Timur Bekmambetov packs plenty of style in this film. In a training montage, Abe spins his axe around himself, leaving black trails in the air which turn into the ink of a scribbling pen in his journal. A wall mural springs into life, portraying bloody historic events and slaver ships sailing through a sea of blood. Bekmambetov enjoys using 3D shots with aplomb: the end of a whip cracks at the audience, a horse charges headfirst towards us and bullets fly everywhere. Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel takes advantage of the period setting, using sepia-influenced tones throughout. 

Some might be put off by the amount of CGI in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. In long establishing shots of places like New Orleans and the White House, the audience can perceive where the set ends and the CGI begins. It’s not terrible but it’s not great either. What is terrible, CGI-wise, is the horse sequence, where Abraham and Jack Barts are fighting amongst a stampede of horses. It’s a cool idea that is terribly executed; some of the horses look cartoonish with big bug eyes and lolling tongues charging at our hero and ourselves. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter doesn’t have much in terms of plot, skipping through big chucks of history so the film can get back to fighting vampires. It does not help that once we get to the White House, the film becomes incredibly sombre and serious, when it should have stuck to its silliness. This also allows the audience the chance to question some of the more dubious plot points, including Abe’s ridiculously poor memory when it comes to vampire weaknesses. 

Benjamin Walker makes an amiable, baby-faced presence as Abraham, a young man who wants to protect humanity from the vampire slavers. Later, he dons some make-up and hair pieces, to become the more famous and haggard President Lincoln history remembers. Walker gives a charismatic performance and performs the action sequences with gusto. Dominic Cooper leaves a bigger impression as Henry Sturges, the vampire-expert with his own dark secret. Cooper is one moment swanning around, the next tearing up the set, glaring darkly at everything around him. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is charming as Mary Todd, earnestly trying to bring some gravitas to the more dramatic scenes and establishing an easy chemistry with Benjamin Walker. 

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is as ridiculous as its titles suggests, the enjoyable action sequences and performances may not be enough for some to make up for the lack of plot and the overuse of CGI.