Essay
Abraham Lincoln; Vampire Hunter
A personal essay on historical fiction, comedy, and why the movie deserves more credit.
Download the original PDFWhat if... Honest Abe wasn’t so honest? What if he was keeping a secret so dark that no one could find out? What if the 16th president of the United States slayed vampires with an axe while stopping slavery? Look no further. Abraham Lincoln; Vampire Hunter, directed and produced by Timur Bekmambetov, is a historical fiction based on Abraham Lincoln’s life.
Abraham Lincoln wants to avenge his late mother who was murdered by a vampire, and a man named Henry Sturges, who is later revealed to be a vampire, offers to teach him how to kill vampires. This sets Abraham Lincoln on a path of killing vampire plantation owners, which leads to him becoming president so he can get other people to kill vampires for him. Despite being a genius movie, it has a 50% Popcornmeter and a 34% Tomatometer. This movie should have at least a 90% Popcornmeter and a 60-70% Tomatometer, due to its wit and comedy.
The movie provides historical context to help viewers understand better when and where this event was taking place. One historical tidbit they provided was when Lincoln needed to smuggle silver to his armies. He sent a fake train full of rocks on the proper railroad, and sent the actual silver through the underground railroad. Despite the fact that Abraham Lincoln never actually used the underground railroad or used silver as a weapon, it helps people remember that Lincoln lived when the underground railroad was active, and was trying to prevent slavery.
One large complaint is historical inaccuracy, and leaving out important parts of Lincoln’s story. These critics fail to remember one important detail: this is historical fiction. So long as the movie is delivering the key points as well as some extra tidbits of information in a way that is entertaining to the audience, it is fulfilling its purpose.
Abraham Lincoln; Vampire Hunter provides a lot of historical information. For example, when the movie portrayed Lincoln’s mother dying, she was trembling, vomiting, and had severe intestinal pain. While in the movie they blamed these symptoms on the vampire bite, in real life she died from Milk sickness (Snakeroot poisoning), which causes the exact same symptoms. Another historical reference they used was having Abraham Lincoln’s weapon of choice for vampire killing be a silver tipped axe, a reference to his political nickname “railsplitter.” Abraham Lincoln; Vampire Hunter had plenty more historical references while being entertaining. The movie deserves a higher Tomatometer by this fact alone. However, there are also other complaints as well.
A large complaint affecting the Popcornmeter is that the movie isn’t very entertaining. Abraham Lincoln; Vampire Hunter is a very entertaining movie. As Gavin Watson put it excellently, “If you ever wanted to see a vampire throw a horse at a would-be President, or see a man chop down a tree with one blow, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter will tick those boxes and more besides.”
Any movie that shows the 16th president of the United States whipping around an axe like a Bo while yelling, “Until we are all free, none of us are free,” while proceeding to decapitate plantation owning vampires deserves a very high Popcornmeter. Especially when compared to other famous historical fictions, like Hamilton (2022), which has a Popcornmeter of 99%. If a musical about a founding father can get such high Popcornmeters, then surely a movie about a vampire hunting president also deserves high scores as well.
In conclusion, Abraham Lincoln; Vampire Hunter accomplishes its goal with confidence. Historical allusions, deliberate absurdity, and over the top action all show a successful example of historical fiction done right. For a unique movie with no real template to follow, the producers embraced originality that is memorable and entertaining. This went over the critics’ heads and the movie deserves far more credit than it received.
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