When Seth Grahame-Smith's 2010 novel, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, debuted, it landed at number 4 on the New York Times Best-Sellers list and created quite a buzz for itself based on its concept alone: Abraham Lincoln hunting vampires. It was snatched up almost immediately for a film adaptation, and it attracted Director Timur Bekmambetov to bring it to life. Bekmambetov isn't new to the world of cinematic vampire action, thanks to his Night Watch and Day Watch films, but on top of that, Benjamin Walker, who will play the film's titular president, isn't new to the role of portraying a sensationalized take on presidency thanks to his lead in Broadway's Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. The film arrives in theaters June 22nd, but the first trailer for the film went live last week. Check it out below.
Call me a Lincoln purist (or something), but frankly the novelty of the concept only works for me when the Lincoln portrayed fits the famous bearded profile that has been used in virtually every famous portrait of him ever (save for one or two). Consequently, the final few seconds of film footage where we see a bearded Lincoln swinging an axe is the only moment when the trailer does anything for me at all. The rest of the time it seems like a very generic, action-heavy vampire action flick.
Yes, the trailer was just mean to whet our appetites, and there's hopefully much more of the film with a bearded Lincoln, but most of that trailer shows a Benjamin Walker sans beard.
Here's hoping this hasn't just turned into a generic action flick about a guy, who kills vampires with axes, and only resembles Lincoln towards the end.
