I’m not exactly sure what the advertising tagline is for this film — as a matter of fact, near as I can tell it doesn’t seem to actually have one — but I know what it ought to be : “Silver — It’s Not Just For Werewolves Anymore.”
Look, I don’t consider myself to be a scholar of the vampiric arts (or whatever they’re called) by any means — I’ve never seen True Blood or any of the Twilight films, for instance — but I know what kills these guys : wooden stakes through the heart. Garlic. Holy water. Sunlight.
Silver? That’s for lycanthropes. But apparently not anymore. Or, rather, not in the 1800s. Don’t get me wrong — director Timur Bekmambetov’s Abraham Lincoln : Vampire Hunter (based on the novel of the same name by Seth Grahame-Smith, who also wrote the screenplay, and produced by Tim Burton, whatever that’s worth) is a clever enough little piece of throwaway historical revisionism : vampires were responsible for the death of Honest Abe (Benjamin Walker)’s parents and so, concurrent with his rise in politics, he also undertakes a crusade, under the watchful eye of his mysterious mentor, Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper) to kill as many of them as he can in his off-hours with this kick-ass silver-bladed trick axe that he’s got. To make matters even worse, these dastardly vampires also control the slave trade (guess it’s too controversial these days to point out that it was other human beings who were responsible for shackling, buying, selling, and ultimately working to death their brethren for generations), and we know how the man in the stove pipe hat felt about that whole dastardly business.
Okay, fair enough — while I’m sure our fellow countrymen and women south of the Mason-Dixon line might take some offense at the idea that their side in the war is depicted here as being controlled by vampires, my honest response to that is one of “tough shit, you’re getting off easy — your real ancestors (not that it’s in any way rational to hold people responsible for the actions of their forefathers) were fighting to keep people enslaved not because they were manipulated by supernatural forces but because they were just plain greedy and racist. Feel better now?,” in point of fact it’s actually a pretty clever pretense. Even clever enough to (almost) sustain an entire film.
But then we come back to this whole goddamn silver thing. Seriously, it’s like vampire Kryptonite in this flick. There’s just no getting around how easy it makes to kill ’em off. And that undermines what otherwise would be a pretty entertaining enough little thrill ride. The performances are perfectly decent on the whole. The costumes, sets, and effects, are all top-notch. The historicity, while complete bullshit, holds together coherently enough. And the whole thing doesn’t take itself too terribly seriously, always something this reviewer in particular appreciates. But the sheer amount of suspension of disbelief required to actually thoroughly (as opposed to in a rather half-hearted and detached “oh, that’s kinda clever” sort of way) enjoy this film becomes a bridge just a tad too far when we throw this annoying new mega- wrinkle into the vampire mythos. I get why they did it, but it grates just the same, and Grahame-Smith’s story relies on it so heavily that it takes what would otherwise be an acceptable enough deus ex machina and turns it into a thick, heavy, lumbering, unyielding crutch. Think of it as the silver straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Through the Shattered Lens 
Reblogged this on Trash Film Guru and commented:
New stuff for Through The Shattered Lens —
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What Bubba Ho-Tep lacked in revenue, it certainly has made up for in inspiration.
This appears to be the only mainstream, big budget, R Rated 3-D movie around. I know there have been a few smaller horror movies that have gone that route. I’m curious if you felt it earned it’s R rating and is the 3-D palpable?
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I’ll be honest, I didn’t see it in 3-D, so I can’t fairly comment on that. But did it earn its R rating? I really don’t think so, it felt like pretty PG-13 to me, in both tone and substance.
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Actually, silver has always been something vampire lore states as being anathema to them. Cultures saw silver as a purifying element since it was the very first metal that could be melted down and made into objects and show no impurities until the advent of steel).
In fact, the use of holy water and crosses was something the Vatican came up with as the sort of cure-all for monsters and such. Even the stake through the heart wasn’t meant to kill the vampire but to keep the body stationary while the vampire’s head was cut-off.
Again all this from so-called vampire killing methods from cultures predating the rise of Christianity and even after that rise these same cultures just integrated Church doctrine to their own time-tested ways.
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That’s really interesting, thanks for the heads-up, even if it pretty much negates my entire review! That being said, how come the popular media has never really run with this whole silver thing when it comes to vampires?
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Mainstream media has caught up to the silver aspect of vampire lore. Vampire fiction in novels and short stories have been using it as a plot device for decades now.
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Shows you how many vampire books I’ve read lately!
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Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s The Strain Trilogy is a good vampire series that brings vampire back to its monster roots.
If you can find in used boom stores or have the money to buy new there’s also Nancy A. Collins’ Sonja Blue series.
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Nancy Collins as in “used to write Swamp Thing” Nancy Collins?
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Yup, she’s been writing Weird West and vampire lit for the past 15 or so years.
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From the list of things that kill vampires, you left out running water (in this case, it need not be holy water, either).
I wouldn’t follow “Twilight” movies as a guide to the vampire legend. After all, the folks behind those films would have you believe that sunlight makes vampires glisten rather than disintergrate. Also, even on an overcast day, there is heaps of sunlight all over us–so to have those “Twilight” cretins walking around in the daytime on a cloudy day is ludicrous, to say the least.
As for “True Blood”, I’ve never watched it, nor does it interest me in the slightest. Modern vampire tales tend to lack the mythic quality of the old vampire films. A film such a “Fright Night” (the original, not the remake–I’ve not bothered with the latter) actually has respect for the vampire legend. On the flipside, films such as “The Hunger” (the Tony Scott film) and “Twilight” really have very little to do with vampiric folklore.
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The running water one I always thought was a bit off as a way to kill a vampire, but then found out that it’s more a regional thing. In Asia some vampires actually don’t mind running water. If one really reads up on the folklore of vampirism from all cultures through the millenia the one common way to destroy them seem to be silver.
Oh, the walking in the daylight bit…it’s actually not a weakness for vampires of certain cultures. The day destroying vampires was something that was also created by the Church. Day signifying God’s purifying light and such while night was always something attributed as the preferred time of Satan and the things that prowled the night.
Most modern vampires films do deviate from the traditional vampire rules set down by Stoker, but then again those rules haven’t really been followed by those old school vampire films either. In the novel, Dracula actually walks the streets of London during the daytime without any difficulty. To me the best modern interpretation of the vampire myth are Near Dark by Kathryn Bigelow, The Addiction by Abel Ferrara and Cronos by Guillermo Del Toro.
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Ah, Christians — is there anything which they’re not capable of taking all the fun out of?
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I love Near Dark. 🙂
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I’ve not seen any of the “Twilight” films, so I’m not getting my limited vampire knowledge from that shlock, fear not! Running water is one I’ve never heard of, though, either,I must admit! Like you, I think the best vampire flicks are the classics — “Dracula,” “Nosferatu,” Vampyr” — I think my favorite modern vampire flicks are George Romero’s “Martin” and both “Let The Right One In” and “Let Me In.” I don’t get into the more heavily romanticized lightweight teen-hearththrob cheesiness of stuff like Anne Rice, “Twilight,” and “True Blood.” All that stuff just strikes me as “Dawson Creek” with immortal blood-drinkers.
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True Blood is actually a pretty good piece of vampire fiction despite all the sex and nakedness. Though that part of the series plays into the sexual aspect of the vampire theme going back to Stoker’s Dracula and Le Fanu’s Camilla.
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I don’t mind a whole lot of sex and nakedness at all! What I don’t get is the whole erotic allure of vampires in general. Guess I’m just not on that wavelength.
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It’s all Bram Stoker’s fault for writing Dracula as a story about Victorian-era sexual repression masquerading as a gothic tale. Then Anne Rice took that and magnified it ten-fold.
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I always thought Anne Rice books were a pox on the literary world. But damn, they sure did sell.
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Martin’s a great one. 🙂
True Blood is actually far better than the majority of vampire stuff out there. About the only thing it has in common with Twilight is that both series feature both werewolves and vampires having to co-exist. However, in True Blood, vampires are presented as just being a total pain to have to deal with, as opposed to Twilight where they’re portrayed as being figures of romanticized perfection.
That said: “Yay Team Edward!” 🙂
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Admit it…True Blood you really like because it has a Skargaard. 🙂
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Skarsgard shirtless! 🙂
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I feel the same about Baby Vamp 🙂
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I’ll be honest, True Blood’s just something I’m never going to get into. I’m glad you guys like it around here, always good to have something acctually worth watching on TV, but for me it still just looks like “Dawson Creek” with fangs. Which it probably isn’t. But I digress.
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Hey, True Blood’s great! 🙂
I recently saw the Hunger. Loved the music and I thought that David Bowie gave a good performance but oh my God, that movie moved so slowly. I have to admit that after seeing movies like the Hunger and the various films that have been made out of Anne Rice’s novels, I’ve reached the point where I’m a little tired of seeing vampires portrayed as ennui-stricken libertines. I’d rather see some homeless, schizophrenic vampires, just for the change of pace.
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Give Romero’s “Martin” a try, then.
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I’ve been meaning to review Martin for a while, actually. Definitely one of the great, underrated vampire films. I actually consider Martin to be Romero’s best film, even more so than his zombie films.
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Not his bikers+Arthurian Legend mash-up, Knightriders?
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Isn’t Knightriders like a 3-hour film? Or did it just feel like 3 hours? Add to that, Stephen King has a cameo appearance in Knightriders and a cameo King brings down the overall quality of any film.
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Knightriders is pretty close to three hours — I think it clocks in around 2 hrs. 45 mins. I actually kind of like it though, Ed Harris turns in a terrific lead performance and, as always, leave it to Romero to spot a developing social trend a couple decades before it happens. Granted, these “LAIRE” role-playing type groups aren’t on motorcycles, but it’s pretty close to the same thing otherwise.
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Main thing I remember about Knightriders is thinking that Tom Savini was kinda sexy in it.
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Apparently he thought he was pretty sexy in it, too — and in everything else he’s been in. I love the guy to death, but modesty is not among his virtues, from what I understand.
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I know a lot of folks who would agree with you on that. I’m not ready to go that far myself, but I definitely see where you’re coming from.
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Thanks for linking to my review!
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