ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES are currently the two monster movie projects getting the most attention for their blending of classical history and fiction with horror.
But only one has its own New York Times feature, and that would be LINCOLN. You can see the first pic from the film above. The rather lengthy article attached details how such a bizarre project came to pass, and what vision the writers and Timur Bekmambetov have for the film.
“What Lincoln did,” Mr. Bekmambetov said, “was like what Jesus did 2,000 years ago: he freed people.”
The “Vampire Hunter” film, like the book, follows Lincoln from his boyhood on the frontier through his assassination by John Wilkes Booth and — because this is a vampire story — beyond. Young Lincoln, having learned that his grandfather and mother were killed by vampires, vows to kill every last blood-sucker in a country that is crawling with them.
On realizing that vampires are tangled in the slave trade, Lincoln’s resolve grows and takes on a moral dimension. To complicate matters he also learns that the creatures come in two varieties, good and bad.
The rest of the piece goes more in depth about how experts from Spielberg’s LINCOLN were brought into consult about sliding vampires in without altering history too much. There’s an examination of Lincoln’s “fighter coat,” his typical attire modified to hide weaponry.
It’s an interesting read, and will undoubtedly be an even more interesting film. Head over to NYT to check the rest out.