Revisionism you can sink your teeth into (Yes, I went there!).

Rating: Null/10 (28 April 2013)

Far too often people make up lies about America's political idols ranging from the founding fathers to President Obama. In many cases it's an attempt to undermine what we stand for, while in others it's wishful thinking. In this case it's a premise that's so fantastic and ridiculous, you can't help but enjoy it.
This version of "Honest Abe's" story begins when Abe Lincoln was a boy living a life as a child laborer with his parents for Jack Barts, a sadistic boss who tries to kidnap and whip a black friend of his and sell him as a slave. Rejecting his dad's advice to "look away," he attacks his boss, and the family is fired. That night he goes after his mother, and when he wakes up he sees her apparently dying of small pox (actually "milk poisoning," but we're not looking for historic accuracy here), but he knows that Barts is responsible for his death somehow. Years later as Abe enters adulthood for the first time, he vows revenge against his family's boss for the murder of his mother and gets drunk at a bar before killing him in order to give himself the courage to do so. Much to his surprise, his old boss can't be killed because he's one of the undead, specifically a vampire. But one man saves his life and nurses him back to health, then explains tells him what Barts really is. That man is Henry Sturgess, and Abe seeks his training to defeat the monster who killed his mother.
Sturgess warns him not to make any friends or seek the spotlight, something which fate has unfortunately made impossible. He also sends him to Springfield, Illinois where he takes a job as a shopkeeper run by Joshua Speed. During his time in Springfield, he slays a few vampires and meets the woman who would later become Mary Todd Lincoln, played by the obviously miscast Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Winstead is far too pretty to play Mrs. Lincoln. Hell, even Sally Field in her current state is too pretty to play Mrs. Lincoln. He also has a casual encounter with Stephen Douglas, the man he would later debate over the abolition of slavery. And once again, he is reunited with his old black childhood friend William Johnson, who is part of the underground railroad and fleeing bounty hunters who intend to sell him and the people he has been setting free.
Before killing the monster who made Abe's life a living hell, he reveals that Sturgess is a vampire too. Upon this discovery, Sturgess reveals that Adam, the man who made him the vampire he is killed his fiancé, and he's as determined to kill them as Abe, but can't do it because vampires can't kill their own.
As the country moves closer to Civil War, the vampires of the new world become more of a threat to the country, and to Lincoln himself. They kidnap Johnson, and Lincoln reveals his secret life to Speed so they can rescue him from the Adam's New Orleans plantation. Adam tries to make a deal with him to slay Sturgess instead, and naturally he rejects the deal as both rescued. According to this movie, Willie Lincoln died not from Typhoid, but from an attack by a vampire woman, and an associate of Adam at that. It's then that Mary discovers the truth about the her husband. Additionally, the north almost lost the Battle of Gettysburg because the Confederate Army had vampires as volunteers.
I don't think I'm going to reveal too much else, because real history is already known. But the way this movie, and the book on which it is based blends the supernatural into real history makes it quite the tale, especially in the way it integrates Abe's determination to wipe out slavery with vampires. It has been pointed out on many occasions that as Lincoln, Benjamin Walker looks a lot like Liam Neeson. But as Adam, Rufus Sewell is reminiscent of William Campbell in his days in that Star Trek episode "The Squire of Gothos." Try thinking of that reference.