{"id":1309,"date":"2012-02-07T13:33:04","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T19:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=1309"},"modified":"2012-02-07T13:33:13","modified_gmt":"2012-02-07T19:33:13","slug":"abraham-lincolnvapire-hunter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=1309","title":{"rendered":"Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It\u2019s bizarre enough to imagine a world where our nation\u2019s 16th president walks among vampires; thankfully, we don\u2019t have to see him harboring a secret crush on one of them, too.<\/p>\n

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (out June 22) arrives at time when the scariest thing about bloodsuckers is how tame they\u2019ve become. For decades they were merciless, seductive, and bloodthirsty villains, but now they\u2019re more commonly seen as the sparkling, waifish, and weepy heroes of YA romantic chick-lit.<\/p>\n

Look at this picture of ol\u2019 Honest Abe: He\u2019s mad as hell! And he\u2019s not going to take it anymore, Stephenie Meyer! YAAARRGHH!<\/p>\n

In this historical fantasy, produced by Tim Burton, vampires strike the same twitchy nerve among the citizenry that terrorists do in our real world.<\/p>\n

Get more EW: Subscribe to the magazine for only 33\u00a2 an issue!<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a sermon in any way, but it is interesting to look at vampires as the all-encompassing, unspeakable, unknowable evil,\u201d says Benjamin Walker, who stars as the bearded slayer-in-chief. \u201cThis evil moves among us, and maybe lives next door. It\u2019s an ideology that we don\u2019t fully understand, but they live by it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The movie is based on the best-selling historical\/horror mash-up by Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) and directed by Timur Bekmambetov, who made Angelina Jolie\u2019s Wanted and the Russian vampire sagas Nightwatch and Daywatch.<\/p>\n

At first, it might just seem like the premise to a Saturday Night Live sketch. \u201cThe joke is in the title, and then we fully commit to it,\u201d says Walker, best known for another offbeat alt-history story, the Broadway musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.<\/p>\n

AL: VH certainly has a sense of humor, but uses real events as a jumping off place for the imagination. The vampire story is interwoven as backstory for many of the twists and turns in Lincoln\u2019s life leading up to the Civil War.<\/p>\n

In this image, we see Lincoln in his younger days, already aware of the vampire menace, but just beginning to learn that he and his trusty felling axe could do something about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s told through the structure of Lincoln\u2019s actual life. You not only see these huge fight scenes and great moments of drama, but you get sort of the greatest hits of Lincoln\u2019s life, from the mysterious death of his mother through the Gettysburg address,
\nsays Walker. \u201cYou get a portrait of this man, as well as a thriller.\u201d