Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

So I've seen the film and read the book and as usual the book trumps the movie. Considering the trailers that were released (the red band one was particularly good!) I knew this would be the case, but don't get me wrong I still enjoyed it.

I'm not one who takes things too seriously, especially my film taste. Years of working in shops have taught me many things, one of them being how serious some people take films, music and games. To the point of being a little arrogant and insulting as to their thoughts on other peoples tastes. Many a time I was told I was an idiot for liking some random film, or the fact that my love of a good blues bass line or guitar solo came from The Blues Brothers didn't make me a 'real' music fan. Each to their own I say!

Army of Darkness (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I've watched my fair share of 'rubbish' movies and have a fond love of the daft and ridiculous (Megashark Vs Giant Octopus is a perfect example) and I believe this sprung from my teenage obsession with The Evil Dead. Now I know Megashark makes something like The Evil Dead look like Citizen Kane, but its that element of daftness and ridiculousness that makes these movies fun, hilarious and so enjoyable -and in the case of the Evil Dead trilogy, downright frightening at times - Zombie Ash in ED2 freaks me out to this day.

So where am I going with this? Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter falls in to this B movie category for me. Its daft, ridiculous and fun and I don't think 15 minutes go buy without some sort of slow motion/bullet time axe slicing of a vampire. On some level we have The Matrix to thank for that.

Benjamin Walker did well and was believable as an axe wielding vampire slayer who reminded me constantly of Liam Neeson. Although I did eventually want him to announce that we should be excellent to each other and party on! Dominic Cooper was great as Henry too although this does lead me to the most disappointing parts of the film for me. Henry's origin in the book was far more interesting than the movie. We know that he must have some sort of history with Adam (Rufus Sewell), but we never find out what it was. In the book, however Henry is one of the English settlers who, with his wife is on a ship destined for America and along with John White they join the colony of Roanoke. I won't ruin it, but it does involvewhat actually happened to the colony and why CROATOAN was carved in to a post.

Another problem with the cast (and mainly from the point of view of a nutty Firefly fan) Alan Tudyk was dumped after only 2 or 3 moments on screen as Stephen Douglas and I don't even think he was credited. Considering his role in the book, this came as a bit of a shock, but I guess for a vampire movie they couldn't get too bogged down with the politics.

Considering the source material, there was a lot missed out of the movie and I imagine that some of it was filmed, but cut out for timing or some other reason. That, I suppose is the nature of a book adaptation.  Anyhoo, it was a good bit of fun and nice night out for me and the other half, so I enjoyed it. If you haven't read the book and find the concept remotely interesting, I would recommend it. I loved the blending of history with fiction and I'll admit I don't know much about Abraham Lincoln, but as usual a book and a movie makes me want to research, research, research! 

Thanks for reading!

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