Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - Review

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter follows our 16th president on his journey from a young boy to a vampire hunter to one of the most historically recognized presidents in American history.


I went into this movie really excited because I enjoyed the book by Seth Grahame-Smith and the fact that Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov were involved. The casting for me wasn't too exciting because I didn't really know Benjamin Walker, I'm not necessarily a huge fan of Dominic Cooper, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead was just Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim to me. Even with that I was still pretty pumped.

However... I walked away extremely disappointed. The pacing was all over the place, the acting was vague, and despite Seth Grahame-Smith writing the screenplay I thought it drowned in comparison to the book. Granted the book wasn't a masterpiece but it was a lot more enjoyable.

Go ahead and click the jump to read the rest so I don't blatantly spoil the movie. It's a little hard to talk about without revealing key points to the plot.



The movie felt so rushed. There was little to no explanation of the vampires or their origin and exactly why they targeted the Lincoln family. Also the excuse of the vampires using slavery in the South mainly for food made no sense when it came to Abraham's friends and family seeing that Indiana wasn't part of the Confederacy. It wasn't even a state that was later claimed. Neither was Illinois. It's like they show Abraham as the president, flash back to him seeing a vampire kill his mother, and then quickly flash forward to him trying to kill the vampire and failing as a teenager. He is recruited by Henry, who we learn later is a vampire as well, and trained to kill vampires the right way. Abraham moves to Springfield, Illinois where he works undercover as a shopkeeper during the days and hunts vampires as night. Springfield is also where he meets his wife, Mary Todd. Before you know it they marry and he gives up vampire hunting for politics but infuses hunting back into his routine while in the White House because a vampire he pissed off years ago kills his son. You also find out that the vampires were a majority of the Confederate Army and were fighting for slavery because they fed on the slaves. The Union defeats the Confederacy by using silver bullets and bayonets and then the movie is over.

I also HATED the ending of the movie. They didn't show Abraham's death at all. They basically showed him leaving with Mary for the theater and then they flash to present day where Henry is trying to recruit a new vampire hunter. It was fucking stupid.


Overall, I just was disappointed. Major, major let down. Visually it was great but at the same time they focused too much on 3D gimmicks. That is one of my main pet peeves about movies these days.