Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter “constructs a fantasy scenario that relentlessly trivializes the Civil War, slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation and the cultural divide,” MSN’s Glenn Kenny notes.

“[It] posits, for instance, that slavery itself was not the creation of human beings just like you and me but the work of blood-drinking undead beings intent on world domination. And that the bloodshed at Gettysburg was at least in part the work of vampire Confederate soldiers who could make themselves invisible and pierce through the hearts of Union soldiers without them even knowing it. And that one of the most genuinely tormented and morally acute leaders the United States has ever known as an ax-wielding avenger and destroyer of supernatural beings.

“Well, that’s kind of a dicey proposition. And Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, written by Seth Grahame-Smith, adapting his own popular novel, and directed by Russian master of action excess Timur Bekmambetov, does not make good on it. It constitutes a moral sin, if not an outright moral crime, and commits a grave insult against history.”

Give it to ’em, Glenn!

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is currently running at 33% positive at Rotten Tomatoes. I would quote the Metacritic score but the shitty wifi in this cabin refuses to bring up the page.

My favorite AL:VH quote is from Village Voice critic Nick Pinkerton: “The logical outer limit of the whole horror-as-metaphor thing, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter shoehorns the entire personal history of the 16th president into mega-budget The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires chop-socky/grindhouse schlock, and casts the seditious South as a nation of slave-sucking undead. Possible resulting ‘fun’ is only slightly mitigated by contemplation of the wearisome decadence of American popular culture.”