Blu-Ray Review – Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter is as bonkers as the title leads you to believe. Let me give you an example…

At about the 40 minute mark our hero, a young Abraham Lincoln battles a Vampire whilst running through a horse-run stampede. It is from within this storm of running hooves and dust that the vampire turns and picks up a horse throws it at our protagonist who in turn catches said horse throws himself on it and rides after the evil blood sucker.

If this scene isn’t enough for you to grab the remote and remove the disk from your player in favour of finding something better on TV, then maybe, just maybe, this is the perfect film for you.

Benjamin Walker plays the hero Abraham Lincoln and seems perfect for the role. Abe is a young man who is haunted by seeing his mother killed and drained of blood by a creäture of the night as a child. The Vampire just so happens to be the aforementioned horse thrower. We see Abraham grow from boy to man and eventually to a highly skilled Hunter all under the supervision of Sturges, a mysterious fellow with a transparent secret, played by Dominic Cooper.

As the story moves forward Lincoln, who is an axeman by trade and can chop down a tree in three strokes, meets and falls in love with Mary Todd, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Mary is a proper lady and is fascinated by Lincoln, but laughs off his silly stories of vampires.

Years later, after a few ham-fisted and cliché filled fight scenes, Lincoln decides to give up hunting and fight for something that is more real. You see the Vampire infestation in USA is but an ant on the more oppressing fact that the country is about to break out in a civil war. So, he hangs up his silver coated AXE and heads in to politics. A quick flash and we now see Lincoln in office having to re-apply his head lopping skills to beat the confederate soldiers as they are fueled by undead bloodsuckers.

Are you still with me?

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter is a sad disingenuous piece of film making. Director Timur Bekmambetov, who is famous for the brilliant films Night Watch and Day Watch, misses the boat here badly. CGI is too over used and the film is full of shabby eye rolling effects and production values.

While the main cast all give their best efforts the screenplay lets them down and the inadequate narrative and pacing that is all over the place makes you wish that you could be sucked dry of life juice just to make it stop.

As you would expect of a modern action movie the audio is fantastic, and as ridiculous the film is there is no denying that the 7.1 DTS HD soundtrack is well used. The mentioned scene above I will give your system the workout it needs form time to time. The picture is a little dark in places but is crisp and clear, so clear that it may be the reason that the effects look so shocking and out of date. I wanted to review the 3D side of the film too, but unfortunately the disk provided was only a 2D variant.

At the end of the day, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter is a silly film that makes no apologies for its ways. Not serious enough to be a horror and not camp enough to be a comedy it just sits there in the middle sulking.