A new birth of freedom

Recently, I browsed Amazon just for the fun of it, looking for “occult” products somehow connected to U.S. presidents. A portrait of Rutherford B Hayes as a zombie, a cultic book promoting pedophilia supposedly translated by Thomas Jefferson, and a collection of Masonic addresses by George Washington were some of the stuff that appeared on my computer screen, hopefully without any occult powers being responsible. Shortly thereafter (a sheer co-incidence, surely!), Swedish television aired this motion picture, with the appealing and appalling title “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”.

I admit that I watched it only because of my not-too-serious interest in the “occult presidency”. I'm glad I did. Although hardly a masterpiece in the higher Academy Award division, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is much better than the title might lead you to expect. I mean, this *really is* a film about how Lincoln, who has a secret identity as a vampire slayer, runs around with a huge axe, showing the undead who's the Man on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line! It was panned by critics, but considering what it could have become in the hands of a less experienced director (read: a splatter turkey), I'd say Timur Bekmambetov did a pretty good job with a concept that's really quite impossible.

In the movie's universe, the South is home to a group of vampires who buy Black slaves with the purpose of killing them and feasting on their blood. Soon, the undead get uppity and penetrate the free states, earning a living as slave-catchers. A young Abe Lincoln takes up the struggle, aided by a mysterious personage who teaches him how to kill the racist blood-suckers. Later in life, Lincoln becomes a politician and tries to forget his colorful past. Unfortunately, the vampires show up again during the Civil War, aiding the Confederacy at Gettysburg with their supernatural powers. To win the war and save America from a fate far worse than Stephen Douglas, Lincoln must use all the tricks he learned as a young man in the vampire-busting business…

The political and social metaphors are Über-obvious. In one scene, Jefferson Davis meets the vampire grand dragon Adam, in another Lincoln enlists the aid of the Underground Railway to combat the vampirist menace. It's interesting to note that many Africans originally assumed that White slave-catchers and slave-traders were cannibals! Since I happen to support the Union in the Civil War, I had no particular problem with the pro-Lincoln/pro-Black slant of this production.

I don't really like vampire-themed or zombie-themed films, so you can take it from me: “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is worth at least the OK rating (three stars). Its entertainment value is probably even higher…