May Contain Spoilers
So I watched "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" last night. Basically all you need to know about the movie is summed up in the title. Abraham Lincoln is in it and he fights vampires. I have to admit, historical inaccuracies aside (and if you went into a movie called "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" expecting historical accuracy, well, maybe you fail at movies) it was actually a fun watch.


If you don't want some minor spoilers then don't read past this point.

It starts out with Lincoln as a young boy and then as a young adult for most of the film. This stuff was good, but when he becomes an adult and President the vampire stuff spills into the Civil War stuff and I wish the two had remained entirely separate. Keep the Vampire hunting before the Civil War. Still though, the majority of the movie is young Lincoln killing vampires with a motherfucking axe. If you like the sound of that, then you'll enjoy this movie.

I don't know if this movie can actually be considered 'historical fiction' because, you know VAMPIRES, but I do feel that the history intrudes on the story. You get Lincoln, you see the process of him becoming this Hunter, you get some historical setup and that's kinda neat, but then you get the vampires being involves with the slave trade.

Huh?

I mean, they make it make some sense because the slaves are a convenient food source for the vampires and it does make the vamps seem even more evil, but it should have been mentioned and mostly forgotten. Just brought up as a way to make the vampires associate more with the South, but no, they have the vampires form a pact with Robert E Lee and actually JOIN THE WAR. IN UNIFORM.

This is made possible by the one violation of the vampire rules they commit. Sunlight doesn't seem to bother them at all. They mention at the beginning that vampires can learn to 'resist sunlight' but then it never bothers any of them. One person is bitten and makes the change (or at least starts it) in what appears to be the afternoon sun with no repercussions.

As for the other rules, they never mention holy symbols or faith, so we don't know if they work at all, but they didn't say they didn't. Nobody got staked in the heart, but again, they don't come out and say that doesn't work, just nobody does it. Basically they don't contradict the rules, but you never see most of them at work. Except for the sunlight thing, but at least they don't goddamn SPARKLE...

The only thing that really harms them seems to be silver, which is perfect because it allows Lincoln to hack the shit out of them with a silver-edged axe and that's the main reason to watch this movie. I admit that the action gets very ridiculous, as apparently Lincoln knew Kung-Fu (never covered THAT in History class) and while I can accept that a vampire can escape by leaping across the backs of stampeding horses it's a lot harder to accept that Lincoln could FOLLOW HIM. Not just follow, but CATCH HIM.

Still though, I've seen a lot worse (seriously, a LOT worse) and I enjoyed it. You might too as long as you know not to take it seriously.