"If you listen closely, you can hear Honest Abe laughing!"

Rating: 7/10 (18 January 2014)

This is a tall tale like the kind I used to tell in Music Class in elementary school. The premise is so off the wall that the onus is on the storyteller to pull the sucker off. This is the kind of story Gordie LaChance, one of the main characters in the movie 'Stand By Me', would reel off to his buddies while they sat around the campfire. The general conversation would somehow drift over to the subject of which was scarier, zombies or vampires, after a learned discussion of girls, sex, and the teachers you hated the most.
At this point, the natural storyteller responds as though on cue.
"Bet you didn't know Abraham Lincoln was a Vampire Hunter!"
This sets off an explosion of laughter and howls of derision.
"What? Like that bitch Buffy?"
"No, he wasn't!"
"You're crazy, man!"
But, of course, this is where the fun begins.
I do not at this point want to give you the impression that this movie is somehow a Camp comedy like Mel Brooks' 'The Producers' or 'Young Frankenstein'. Because the truth is it is played straight and not for laughs.
That in itself is the wonder of it all.
I remember when virtually nobody thought that 'Beetlejuice' guy Michael Keaton could possibly play a caped crusader also known as the Batman. Later on, I shook my head at how wrong I was.
This now makes for the second time.
I was not going to see this movie. I did not seek this movie out. The premise seemed ridiculous and in bad taste. Why make a joke out of The Great Emancipator like this?
Of course it is some kind of pastiche, but I defy you not to be pleasantly surprised as I was by the time the end credits rolled around.
Everyone knows how hard it is to establish and maintain a suspension of disbelief for any story; particularly for improbable subject matter. But herein lies the beauty of 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter'. I think what happens here is that the Mythology of The Great Emancipator interfaces with the Mythology of The Prince of Darkness and instead of being degraded and debased by this Gothic romance, elevates and lends it dignity! Put another way, the Soul Force of Honest Abe proves to be more powerful than the Mojo of any Undead Bloodsucker.
Anyway, that is my theory and I am sticking to it!
This mixture of two elements or substances that seem at the outset grossly incompatible proves in actual practice to produce a compound of truth and fiction that is oddly palatable and satisfying. Something like mixing hot sauce with black-eyed peas or eating barbecued flavored potato chips with ice cream. It should not work; it should make you sick to your stomach, and yet for some odd reason as a midnight snack it just hits the spot.
This also resolves what Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster once admitted was a long standing argument between themselves as to the purpose and function of Art. The long standing debate between the two friends was should Art primarily teach or should it primarily entertain. Kirk believed that Art's primary function was to entertain and life lessons learned from it were simply icing on the cake. Burt believed the exact opposite. Now I find myself leaning towards and favoring Douglas' point of view. There are many things referenced here and touched upon in passing without being explored in depth and I'll leave it to you to discover what these subjects are.
I almost forgot that one of the joys of storytelling is to tell a whopper in such a convincing way that your audience goes along for the sheer thrill of the ride, even as they know full well that this never happened this way and yet if it were to happen like this, doggone, I believe it would be something like the way this is being told.
I also believe this explains the appeal of 'Django Unchained', although I believe it is rated too high just as this film is rated too low. I would rate both films a seven and submit that they easily reflect and clarify each other. Plus, you don't have to worry about finding any good white people in either of these films, as was the complaint about Spike Lee's flawed masterpiece 'Malcolm X'. The races unite with heroic 'elan, particularly in 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter', to fight against a universal evil that is sucking the life and soul out of the country. This, despite the wildly improbable context, strikes a meaningful chord of realism.