Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter explores the secret life of our greatest President, and the untold story that shaped our nation. Visionary filmmakers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (director of Wanted) bring a fresh and visceral voice to the blood-thirsty lore of the vampire, imagining Lincoln as history’s greatest hunter of the undead.
Fear Net was part of a select few that Fox gave the privilege of viewing the trailer and footage from
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. The trailer will be released on Monday to the general public. Finally we'll get a better look at this fictionalized version of Lincoln that wields a bad-ass axe which has a blade that retracts so that shotgun barrel can emerge.
Scene 1 - Then the footage rolled. One of the scenes we were shown last night featured Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) as a young man, still grieving after his mother has been killed by vampires, honing his skill with an axe under the instruction of his mentor, Henry Sturges (played by Dominic Cooper). Walking through a sunlit forest, Sturges instructs Lincoln to think of the things he hates most in life, and tells him to focus his aggression on a tree. Growing more enraged with each swing of his axe, Lincoln's anger culminates in an explosive blow that takes down the entire tree in a slow-mo, CGI-enhanced money shot, chunks of wood hurtling at the screen. (This shot is featured in the trailer, and will doubtlessly prove even more effective in 3D). Sturges then tells Lincoln to do the same to every other tree in the woods.
Scene 2 - Another scene showed Lincoln targeting a local shopkeeper who's secretly a vampire, and a mano-a-mano fight ensuing in his tiny store. It's a fight that quickly ends, with Lincoln falling through a trap door into a basement/dungeon, where he's immediately ensnared by his legs and strung upside down alongside several other men.
The
third scene that was shown involved Abraham Lincoln courting a young Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Honest Abe lives up to his nickname by coming clean to Mary about his vampire hunting, but she laughs it off as a humorous tale.
The fourth and
final scene was a battle scene with the Confederate and Union soldiers. As the two sides close in on each other vampires can be seen as part of the Confederate troops. These vampires have type of sunscreen on that protects them from the sun. The Union troops are no match for the vampires and are viciously exposed of.
If you can't wait for the trailer to be released tomorrow and you'd like to read details of that as well, just click on the Fear Net link
.
Seth Grahame-Smith, who wrote the novel that the film is based on, took part in a Q&A session. The author was asked if the film could possibly have a sequel if it was successful at the box office.
"The short answer is yes. If you read the book there's a little epilogue that sort of leaves things a little open to that. I think, in the film, without giving anything away… we don't definitely end with the origin story. So yes."
Seth added that the film will be "very bloody" and the scare factor is turned up a notch as these vampires won't be of the lovable
Teen Magazine variety featured in films like
Twilight.
Seth is also a successful screenwriter and he had the rare task of adapting his very own novel into a screenplay. One of the difficulties that he encountered was that in the book he didn't require one true villain. So, to rectify that problem, he created a central villain, to give a voice to the vampires. Another challenge was that the book didn't have a "big climax" so a new whole new scene had to be created.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is directed by Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) and stars: Benjamin Walker, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Erin Wasson, Rufus Sewell, Jimmi Simpson, Dominic Cooper, Anthony Mackie. The film will be released on June 22, 2012.