Rack Focus: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Director Timur (Wanted) Bekmambetov’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter should be the type of hoot-and-holler horror flick where my nearest and nerdiest friends can get together and cheer as our 16th president slaughters droves of the undead. Why, then, did I mostly dislike what I saw? This isn’t a film that has anything insightful to say about slavery or the Civil War, and I’ve celebrated more tacky and tasteless schlock than this (which reassigns some of history’s most significant deaths — Lincoln’s mother, for one — to bloodsuckers rather than bad milk). Based on the novel written by Seth Grahame-Smith (who also wrote the screenplay), the film’s problems can be chalked up to discordant dialogue and problematic plot holes that devalue his promising high-concept.

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