A new red-band trailer has been released for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter which serves up plenty of gore, bloody stakings and some axe inflicted beheadings. This mash-up tale looks pretty cool, aside from the fact that it’s somewhat trivializing a historical president’s memory – and rather than going for a more subtle nuanced vampire outing, the visuals by Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov‘s are devised to make this an action hero’s tale.
The films bloody scenes are reminiscent of producer Tim Burton‘s Sleepy Hollow, where be-headings were swift and explicit – making the movie all the more gruesome and indulgently enjoyable. Chopping heads of vamps isn’t the same as chopping the heads of normal folk cause vamps kind of deserve it, unless of course they hail from Mystic Falls.
Fun aside, there is some concern that writer Seth Grahame Smith may not have injected enough narrative buoyancy to make this flick the winner it could be, which might explain the use of stylized slow-mo visuals to dazzle and sustain interest. Grahame-Smith also scripted Tim Burton‘s Dark Shadows, which wasn’t the success many thought it would be, the sub par screenplay being cited as the core issue. Grahame-Smith’s book Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, was devised as a biography based on ‘secret diaries’, though it seems this framing device may have been diluted for it’s big screen adaptation.
The film stars Benjamin Walker, Dominic Cooper, Rufus Sewell, Anthony Mackie, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
Check out the red band trailer here:
A third and presumably final trailer has been released which adds more depth and atmosphere. Interestingly it starts off establishing the president writing in his ‘secret’ diary which serves as the story’s launching point. Overall the tone is less about visuals and more about introducing us to characters who are facing an impending war against the vampires.
Catch the new trailer here:
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter opens in 2D and 3D on June 22nd, 2012.
No comments yet.