Seth Grahame-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was a gloriously silly idea combining the history of Abraham Lincoln with a bloody fight against vampires, a kitschy-cute premise, even if he’d already sort of beaten the joke to death in his first book. Or as the book description put it:
While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years. Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation…
So what do you get when you let the Kazakhstani director of Wanted make a movie adaptation of what was basically a 300-page mash-up of prose styles? Judging by the trailer, you get Blade with top hats, basically.
The twist is that he kills vampires, you see.
SETH GRAHAME-SMITH: What if we took dry historical stuff and rewrote it in the style of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie? Wouldn’t that be hilarious?
MOVIE EXEC: That’s a great idea! Only problem, I don’t really read “books.” Too wordy. BUT, what if we took your book of dry historical stuff written in the style of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, and adapted it in the style of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie?
SETH GRAHAME-SMITH: What? That doesn’t make any sense, it totally ruins the joke.
…Wait, how much did you say you were going to pay me?
Opens June 22nd.
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You say Blade with tophats like it’s a bad thing. It could be worse. It could be Twilight with tophats.
I stopped reading at “Kazakhstani director of Wanted”.
No good can come from this.
He may be remembered as a Vampire Hunter, but to me he’ll always just be good ole Honest Abe, who couldn’t tell a lie, like the time he cut down that cherry tree with his dick.
Personally, 1/2 of the joke is just the damned title. You gotta make a movie people want to watch beyond that, especially if the other 1/2 of the joke is the prose-style. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t hear too many words in that trailer to cast judgement, anyway.
I’m pretty impressed, frankly. From the trailer, it seems they ARE trying to make something watchable and not just a silly one note joke. Plus… no shirtless mouth breathers. That’s a bonus.
They should have written him as a lumberjack instead of a vampire hunter. Imagine a P.T. Anderson-esque epic tale of his rise to fame and fortune, ending in a climatic sequence where he castrates Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe. Holy shit, I’m about to become a novelist!
This looks retarded. The more I see the more retarded it looks. Can we please stop with these hipster books? Also Mr. Cash’s music being used for this movie is a fucking felony.
Well his monologue from a great song anyway.
TEAM BOOTH 4 LIFE!!!
Too soon?
How to save this movie: He fights southern vampires wearing old timey blackface. (WB, that sentence doesn’t really tell us who wears the blackface. Can’t it be both?)
The film might be retarded, but, since it doesn’t feature Lincoln’s wife, at least it’s not Mary Todd-ed.
Abraham Lincoln: Vagina Chaffer
I wouldn’t pay five bucks to see this.
The obvious choice to play Lincoln’s wife? Kristen Whig.
It begins with the Emancipation provocation and ends in a theater. So Ken Burns, fuck you, muh man.
**skrillatch**
The whole premise is ridiculous because a guy that badass wouldn’t allow someone to sneak up behind him and shoot him in the back of the head. Unless of course, Abe was bit by a vampire and JWB had replaced him as the new vampire hunter and had to kill Lincoln before he became vampire president and changed American policy to benefit the undead. Or aliens, whatever fuck you. I am furious that trailer made me think about it this much.
This movie, like the vast majority of other lazy movies, relies on the common person’s complete ignorance of history, outside of this simple formula: Lincoln=good; Hitler=bad. It saves the writer from having to write narrative that inspires an emotional accord/discord with the characters based on their actions. It might as well be finger-paint title cards stating: “This is the good guy” and “This is the bad guy.” Lincoln was no angel, and neither is anyone else. The only use for an audience so stupid is to make an unthinking voting bloc that reacts like cattle to narrative signals, thus saving anyone from explaining anything ever.
Abraham Lincoln: Nazi Hunter
Abraham Lincoln: Moronic Premise.
But it has Alan Tudyk in it. Doesn’t that automatically make it good?
Abe shot first,
Abe is able to wield his scarf much like Indy wields his whip, or GTFO.
poor online cynics…yes the idea is stupid, yes wanted was pretty stupid…but i would be lying to u if i said that the trailer wasnt badass looking. can u guys enjoy anything anymore? its called abraham lincoln vampire hunter, i would be mad if it didnt look like this…not ashamed to say this looks fun as hell
I’d rather pay to see a smart movie that’s fun as hell, instead of a fun as hell movie that makes the assumption I’m retarded.
What does that even mean anymore, “looking badass?”
I mean, how many Michael Bay, Paul W.S. Anderson, Stephen Sommers etc. movies does one have to see before the sight of slow mo jumps amidst ridiculous explosions and over-choreographed martial arts fights starts boring the shit out of you? Sure, this movie probably provides 2 hours of distraction without a need to really mentally invest yourself, but that’s the cinematic equivalent of dangling keys in front of a baby.
There’s literally nothing in the trailer that particularly makes me want to see this movie. It’s just another flimsy excuse of a plot to feature vampires, ‘splosions and the usual chinese martial arts crap, because what else would they use in 19th century America…
They lost me at wire-fighting. I was just sort of hoping for musket and axe fighting, sans wall running. Also, I guess if Burton’s only producing he can’t force Johnny Depp to star in it. I maybe learned something today.
I take it, Vince that you couldn’t be bothered to read the original book, and thus don’t realize that it isn’t a funny book, but rather a Horror Based Historical Fiction?
I thought not.
Capitalization does not a genre make.
So it’s a book about Abraham Lincoln hunting vampires that ISN’T funny? Well now I definitely don’t want to read it.
Also, it was written by the guy who wrote Pride, Prejudice and Zombies, so I think the author purposefully threw a little chuckle factor into his work. I’m secretly hoping that Abe’s mom’s maiden name is Van Helsing. Just kidding. I’m not going to watch this.
wow… that is an incredibly expensive joke. and to scoobs… i think burton had his usual cast doing some other vampire movie… didn’t want to confuse people probably. and i’m not even kidding.
i’ll watch it. but i’ll wait until its cheap. i’ve read the other oddballs in this type of ‘genre’ and can’t say i loved them… P&P and zombies is also on the way. at least i appreciate that they are making movies on thoughts that sound funny/entertaining… rather than another game based on board games (battleship?… come on. they’d better say b -4… HIT! or something in it).
movies are for not thinking. books… they are for thinking. leave it at that.
Saw trailer at Hunger Games movie —full theater -of people-laughing their ass off—i thought it was a joke –or a April fools prank—-whoever paid for this movie to get made —please come film me taking a shit it should make you the same amount of money—would not watch it even with a red box free code