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Colin Carman

~ Jane Austen Scholar & Culture Vulture

Colin Carman

Tag Archives: true blood

Review: “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”

23 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by colincarman in Film Reviews

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

abraham lincoln, action, anthony mackie, bejamin walker, caleb deschanel, civil war, dominic cooper, erin wasson, horror, joshua fry speed, liam neeson, mary elizabeth winstead, rufus sewell, seth grahame-smith, timur bekmambetov, true blood, vampire hunter, vampires

 

“The Exsanguination Proclamation”

Grade: D (SKIP IT)

WHAT A PITY that “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” fails to live up to the fun of its name.  This deadly dull take on the American icon and vampirism’s imagined complicity in nineteenth-century slavery comes from the horror novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, who wrote the screenplay here, and Russian director Timur Bekmambetov (“Wanted,” “Day Watch”).  But long before the runaway train carrying Abe (Benjamin Walker) and arch-enemy Adam (Rufus Sewell) crosses a burning bridge at the film’s climax, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” derails into a whole stockpile of horror film clichés.  If you opt for the 3-D version, prepare yourself for at least a dozen shots, compliments of cinematography Caleb Deschanel (Zooey’s papa), of a piranha-mouthed vampire swallowing his close-ups whole.  This is just as tiresome as the Civil War battlefield scenes which dispense with the realities of actual warfare and mobilize instead an onslaught of CGI simulacra.

The film’s narrative is conventionally chronologic: we see the bushy-bearded president in middle-age in the Oval Office, penning his memoirs, before we flashback to 1818 and the waterside set of “Anaconda.”  A young Abe passionately defends his black friend Will (a wasted Anthony Mackie) from Jack Barts, the first piranha-mouthed bloodsucker played by Marton Csokas.  When Barts drains his mother in her sleep, the aspiring lawyer vows revenge on the undead roaming in Indiana.  (Lincoln’s real mother, Nancy, died of tremetol vomiting in 1818 when Lincoln was just nine years old.)  Vampirism is such a fetish in contemporary culture – think of Bella and Edward’s virginal antics or the queerish hedonism of HBO’s “True Blood” – that it always involves some sacred sort of initiation ceremony, and here, Henry Sturgess (played by up-stager Dominic Cooper) opens Lincoln’s eyes to all things vampiric, from the silver-edged axes he’ll need to slay them to the powerful cult led by Adam and sidekick Vadoma (Erin Wasson).  But whose side is he on?

Refreshingly, there’s a bit of bromance at play between Abe and Henry, perhaps a playful take on Lincoln’s romantic friendship with Joshua Fry Speed, the leader’s lifelong friend and “partner,” in the literal sense, at the general store they ran together in Springfield, Illinois.  One has to wonder why it is Henry’s voice that comes to Lincoln’s mind when he kisses his future first lady, Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).  But this is the only whiff of transgression in “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” which, fatally, had the potential for campy humor but takes itself too seriously by following the rules.  What can we do but laugh when we see the sixteenth president of the U.S.A., Benjamin Walker, who bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Liam Neeson, wielding an axe and splitting heads like they’re watermelons?  If only Grahame-Smith and Bekmambetov had milked that absurdity for crimson laughs and not the black blood that repetitively splatters the screen.

If only this bloodless time-waster came with its very own John Wilkes Booth to sneak up behind you in the theatre and put you out of your misery.

Review: “Fright Night”

20 Saturday Aug 2011

Posted by colincarman in Film Reviews

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

alpha dog, anton yelchin, austin powers, bromance, christopher mintz plasse, colin farrell, craig gillespie, david tennant, dracula, edward scissorhands, fatal attraction, fright night, glenn close, horror, illusionist, imogen poots, las vegas, monsters, muriel's wedding, nosferatu, role models, russell brand, sexuality, summer blockbuster, terminator, tim burton, tom holland, toni collette, true blood, twilight, vampires

“Sucker Lunch”

GRADE: B (RENT IT)

GARLIC? CHECK. HOLY WATER? CHECK. Wooden stake?  Check.

The power to resist the black Irish wiles of actor Colin Farrell as the vampire-next-door?  Not so much.  Farrell is surprisingly well-suited to the role of Jerry, a seductive bloodsucker who, like the Las Vegas housing development in which he suddenly appears, drops out of the sky and into his neighbors’ necks.  As the film makes plain, Vegas is a regular Mecca for our fanged friends: it’s another City that doesn’t sleep and chockfull of transients.  The opening aerial shots of a colorless community of townhouses in the Nevada desert – think of the homogenous rows of homes in the Tim Burton classic “Edward Scissorhands” (1990) – immediately establishes a sense of vulnerability.  It’s only a matter of time before something dark and demonic turns this Pleasantville upside down.  Enter Colin Farrell stage-left, or is it stage-fright?

I’ve been thinking about Dracula’s eyebrows lately.  For an academic article I’m preparing on the hair of nineteenth-century literary monsters, I focused on this description from Bram Stoker’s genre-generating classic, Dracula (published on May 26, 1897):  “[Count Dracula’s] eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion […] The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.”  Farrell’s got the bloodless pallor and Groucho Marx brows to play the part perfectly.  He’s Nosferatu with a six-pack.

From northwestern Romania to Sin City, from the Count to an average-joe like Jerry whose sexy surface masks something truly sadistic underneath.  A bloodsucker with a quotidian name like Jerry is, of course, played for laughs in the teen-friendly “Fright Night,” but it’s Jerry’s kids (the kids of Hillcrest Bluffs, Nevada, that is) that make this horror-fest feel fresh and intermittently funny.  Principally, there’s Charley (played by Russian-born Anton Yelchin of “Terminator: Salvation” and “Alpha Dog”) who is pursuing a new friend group, and a new girlfriend named Amy (Imogen Poots), at his high school.  He’s finding his childhood friend Ed Lee (the perfectly cast Christopher Mintz-Plasse of “Role Models”) hard to shake, and like a gay teen version of Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction,” he keeps showing up at inopportune times, threatening to expose his nerdy past if Charley won’t hunt vampires with him.  He seems to say: I won’t be ignored, Charley.

This is the endearing core of the script, and though Ed doesn’t last long (at least amongst the human realm), he is one half of a teenage bromance seldom seen on screen.  Ed’s sexuality may be an adolescent question mark, but when he succumbs to Jerry in a swimming pool, feebly holding a crucifix in the air as if that’s gonna save him, Farrell moves in, holds him in his arms, and says: “You were born for this.  It’s a gift.”  If you’re like me and can’t abide the “Twilight” series and its sentimentalization of virginity, try HBO’s hit series “True Blood” (now in its fourth season) on for size.  You’ll never look at vampire narratives, so ubiquitous these days, and not remember that vampires are thinly veiled metaphors for sexual otherness (gay, lesbian, trans, fill in the blank).  It unsurprising, then, that when Charley and Ed fight to the death later in “Fright Night,” Ed holds his former friend tight and says: “Is this good for you? I’m feeling pretty homo right about now.”

Every Hollywood cast should be so lucky as to have the amazing Toni Collette (as Charley’s mom, Jane) around for just-add-water credibility.  Sure, she went mainstream in “The Sixth Sense” after the camp classic, “Muriel’s Wedding” of 1994, but she returns to the undead themes that made her big back in 1999 and with winning results.  Charley and Amy stand back as she flirts unabashedly with Jerry (gardening in a Brando-esque tank top) and confesses “I’ve had man troubles.  I’m not getting suckered again.”   Another notable cast member is Scotsman David Tennant as a Midori-swilling Vegas illusionist named Peter Vincent.  His performance is an obvious satire of Russell Brand (aka Austin Powers 2.0) and it gives the movie some teeth.  Charley comes to Vincent for advice on how to kill vampires, saying “I know what you do is an illusion.”  Tennant replies: “By illusion, you mean bullshit.”  Pause.  “Fair enough.”

Based on the original 1985 film written by Tom Holland, the retooled “Fright Night” (directed by Craig Gillespie and re-written by Marti Noxon) will entertain you right up until its slightly limp last act.  The film peaks after a car chase with a terrified Charley, Jane, and Amy running from Jerry, but once Toni Collette is hospitalized, “Fright Night” flatlines.   It’s not Farrell’s fault, nor is it his numerous costars’.  The problem lies in the fact that, by 2011, we’ve seen it all before.  Vampires have never been more en vogue and that’s because, like the mafia (Hollywood’s other favorite preoccupation), they operate invisibly amongst us, recruiting and romping in blood.  By now, we hardly need to be told that what happens in Vegas decays in Vegas.

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