"Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter". Have You Read It?
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 10:00AM Yesterday, Entertainment Weekly offered up a new batch of photos for Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter starring Benjamin Walker (aka Meryl Streep's brand new son-in-law, recently married to Mamie Gummer).
For those who aren't familiar with him, his star making role (of sorts) was a lead on Broadway as "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson"... so this will be his second consecutive blood-splattered US President. What an odd odd start to a career.
Stage and screen require different scales of acting. Charisma and skill in one doesn't always transfer to the other so you never know. But on stage he just popped. He unarguably had "it" and a lot of "it", too. He turned down the role of Beast in X-Men First Class -- a potentially lucrative franchise gig -- to stay with his minor hit stage show which reveals either true devotion to the theater, strict contractual ethics or real confidence in his gift. Or all three. It didn't take long for another opportunity to present itself.
Out of accidental curiousity I recently picked up the book at the library. I wonderd about its content and if I could pick up any clues as to why this one didn't have any trouble getting off the ground while his first fiction novel Pride & Prejudice & Zombies can't seem to get out out of development hell.
The thing that surprised me the most and I'm not sure bodes well for the movie is how earnest it was. I was expecting comedy or at least satire but it read very much like a straightforward entry into the subgenre of historical fiction that twists history with supernatural elements. It's basically Lincoln the younger years only with a backstory that involves hunting super evil bloodsucking creatures. In the book the vampires are quite powerful in the south (though their nature is a secret from most) and they're all entangled financially and socially with plantation owners which gives them a neverending supply of defenseless prey (the slaves) that no one will miss. And here is where I had the problem. I actually found the book a little offensive. No one, least of all Abraham Lincoln, should need an overlay of supernatural bloodsucking to give them an epiphany about how cruel and unfair and irredeemably evil slavery is/was.
I wonder what the movie will do with the books framing device which is a modern discovery of Lincoln's private diaries. It seems like it might be an awful lot of wasted running time in a film version but we'll see. I haven't read Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and if its similar I can only assume it isn't filming already because Hollywood is so skittish about female leads, no matter how many hits feature them.
Have you read either of Seth Grahame-Smith's books?
Do you like the supernatural alternate history genre?
Reader Comments (12)
//skittish about female leads//
That was my first thought, Nathaniel, although I should admit I haven't read either book. (Is the fact that Spielberg is making the film bio with DDL giving this a little boost, weirdly enough? As in, "we haven't done Lincoln on film in decades, so people are obviously dying for a double-shot!")
That the people who greenlight films are STILL skittish on female leads in films after this year's showing of The Help, and Bridesmaids and (need I go on through the last 40 years?) is inexcusable. As well as the excellent showing of Austin films (including on the BBC) over the past 30, including the twists on Austin (Clueless and Bridget Jones.)
What I can imagine, however (not having read the book) is that someone might think "only guys go to see zombie flicks, not girls" and assume a "zombie flick with female leads in the time of Jane Austin" might be too much of a mindfuck - EXCEPT that the book itself was a hit, and I assume with women as well as men. (And I also assume that young women especially are going to zombie films just as men are.)
Sure, Walker is obviously hot property (but lots of hot stage stars are never given the opportunity to make the transition); I suspect it all comes down to this - he's MERYL STREEP'S son-in-law, which is probably a hell of a lot better of a ticket than being, say "Tom Cruise's wife".
I've read both Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. They are similarly told, except P & P & Z is more tongue in cheek, less easier to believe as "real." I think what it comes down to with the movies is that people will be able to accept Abe Lincoln as a badass vampire hunter. Having Elizabeth from P & P & Z, a period romance, being a badass trained zombie killer is going to be "too much" for some people. Also, the words themselves follow the same pattern. The whole "vampires being in league with the south during the civil war" set up is tighter and more "believable" than a zombie epidemic running wild in the world of Pride and Prejudice. Because... how you said you were surprised how closely AL:VH stuck to actual history, P & P & Z sticks very, very closely to the Pride and Prejudice story and the world the story takes place in. Except there are zombies.
*Correction to above post: "Also, the worlds themselves follow the same pattern."
I read it and thought it was great fun. Grahame-Smith did a terrific job of referencing real events and people in his alt-history novel. I'm looking forward to the movie.
I haven't read P&P&Z, but a few of my friends have, and they said that's it's literally huge chunks of the original P&P verbatim, occasionally interrupted by zombie fighting. They thought the whole thing was a bit lazy and would have preferred that the author rewrote P&P to make the zombies make more sense in context.
I've been avoiding the Abraham Lincoln book, but that sounds like it's a better-executed idea than P&P&Z.
P&P&Z is a high-button period romance, only the sisters are skilled zombie assassins. They court their mates with displays of dance-like slaying. It's literally the Jane Austen novel with added zombie action. Any humor comes from the disconnect between Victorian manners and blood letting. I rather enjoyed it but I'm an Austenite. That's why it can't get out of development hell. Whoever makes it is stuck battling the expectations of horror fans with the expectations of Austen fans. The crossover between the two is rare.
The development hell of P&P&Z is why I often joke about rewriting Northanger Abbey as a mild-mannered romantic comedy of social status. I'll just replace all the rattling suits of armor and odd night occurrences with hushed discussions in hallways and scandalous hand holding in the woods. Why? Because it makes as much commercial sense to eliminate the Gothic draw of that book as it does to add horror to Pride & Prejudice. It doesn't. Yet, P&P&Z is much better than it has any right to be on the page.
I still think P&P&Z should just be the exact same cast, crew and writers of 2005's P&P. It would add a whole new level of familiar-with-a-twist. And isn't Lady Catherine a karate master or something? Can you imagine a ninja battle between Keira Knightley and Judi Dench?
Hey Nathaniel! I happened to have actually just finished Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter last week in preparation for the movie...and for the fact that I've owned the book for a good year/year-and-a-half and never got around to reading it, but now I have! =)
That said, I also got about halfway through Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, and honestly I preferred this so much more: I can't really put a finger on it, but I just got so bogged down in P&P&Z with so few "zombie moments" that it just bored me and I still have yet to finish it...although I definitely want to try to in the near future, at least.
With Abe Lincoln at least, overall I thought it was way more enjoyable and fun to read: the whole "it's like an actual history book...with vampires in it!" style that Grahame-Smith goes for really made it way funnier to me in the same way that I read The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks, in the fact that it WAS so "serious" but still fun.
It's weird to me, though, that you mention the whole "trouble with female leads" thing, in particular since so many high profile actresses (like Natalie Portman) were attached to the movie version of P&P&Z, that it wouldn't seem like an issue...or maybe they were scared off of making an epic zombie horror movie so close to another epic zombie horror movie...namely, World War Z...coming out this year? Who knows =P
But yeah! Loved AL: VH and looking forward to the movie...AND FOR A TRAILER, SOON!!!
(WOW Sorry for the multiple posts, I only clicked "Create Post" once and Safari seriously messed up...sorry all!)
I thought that P&P&Z was just wasted potential. I was tickled to death to read it and it just wasn't that funny. But unless i'm mistaken, haven't they been trying to make it for some time? For awhile back, it seemed like every other actress in Hollywood was turning down the lead.
I read "Abram Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" last winter. It was a nice read. Some aspects of the book pissed me off, but I wasn't offended. I am a black man, the slavery parts didn't get me as riled up as you did. The book is fine. It's not the greatest thing ever. I read it to see the movie.
It would be weird to see this tall, lanky man killing some bloodsuckers.
Meryl's new son-in-law, eh? Can we anticipate a cameo from Mags Thatcher: Werewolf Slayer?