- Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4 (2D); MVC (3D)
- Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
- Audio Codec: 2D & 3D: English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (48kHz/24-bit), English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 5.1, French, Portuguese, Turkish, Magyar,Czech, Spanish, Polish Dolby Digital 5.1; 2D-Only: Hungarian, Russian, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian Dolby Digital 5.1
- Subtitles: English SDH, French, Danish, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Greek-Moder, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Slovenian, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
- Subtitles Color: White
- Region: A (Region-Locked)
- Rating: R
- Run Time: 105 Mins.
- Discs: 3 (1 x Blu-ray 3D + 1 x Blu-ray + 1 x DVD)
- Digital Copies: UltraViolet + iTunes
- Studio: 20th Century Fox
- Blu-ray Release Date: October 23, 2012
- List Price: $49.99
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Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Film
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
HD:[Rating:4.5/5]
3D Effect: [Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3.5/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(All TheaterByte screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG at 100% quality setting and are meant as a general representation of the content. They do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
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The Film
[Rating:4/5]
Russian-Kazakh filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov is familiar with films that veer into fantastical excess. He is, after all, responsible for giving us the Russian vampire-themed box office blockbusters Night Watch and Day Watch, the Angelia Jolie action vehicle Wanted, and was producer on the splendid animated 9 and “found footage” sci-fi horror film Apollo 18. So that he would so easily pick up the reigns for this undeniably silly yet too tasty to be ignored bit of action-horror and turn it into something well worth watching is not surprising in the slightest.
From a Seth Grahame-Smith screenplay based on his own novel, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter sets up the clash of good versus evil from early in Abraham Lincoln’s (Benjamin Walker) youth, when he witnesses his mother killed in the night by the evil vampire Jack Barts (Marton Csokas). Grownup and still set on vengeance, Lincoln fiinds his mother’s killer, determined to kill him, but the confrontation doesn’t go as planned. In steps skilled vampire hunter Henry Sturges (Dominic Cooper) who teaches Abraham the skills he will need to be a deadly vampire slayer, but instead of a gun, he wields a silver-tipped axe. Lincoln then moves to Illinois where he meets the charming young Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and begins losing interest in his life as a hunter, especially when childhood friend Will Johnson (Anthony Mackie), a free black, revives his interest in abolishing slavery. Changing direction, Lincoln launches headlong into politics, eventually becoming the 16th president and fighting a war against the vampires who are looking to takeover the south and gain a foothold in the New World.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter has to be commended for first making vampires once again the true villains in a horror film and forgoing entirely the wishy-washy romance that we have been inundated with with so many vampire-themed films and television series of late. This is purely good versus evil, and there’s no doubt who the bad guys are. Secondly, the film is bang on when it comes to action. One of the most exhilarating scenes finds Abraham Lincoln chasing down Jack Barts atop a stampeding herd of horses.
Throughout all of this, Grahame-Smith and Bekmambetov manage to weave into the film a true sense of historical fact, like the Gettysburg Address that makes this magnificent paean to the ridiculous all the more palatable. It becomes one of those films that is so sublimely silly that one cannot help but fall in love with it and go with it, especially since it is so beautifully filmed and wonderfully acted. Benjamin Walker, for instance, imparts a true sense of zeal and dignity as Lincoln the politician while simultaneously being a believable axman. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is a perfect counterpart to Walker as Mary Todd, imparting charm and grace, while Rufus Sewell is the superb southern vampire villain Adam. Most of all, however, there’s no sense of tongue-in-cheek or fooling the viewer here, this is straight up action horror, despite the obviously ridiculous scenarios, and that makes it all the more scrumptious.
Video Quality
HD: [Rating:4.5/5]
3D Effect: [Rating:3.5/5]
In 2D, Abraham Lincoln looks great. It has a beautifully clean, filmic presentation with the subtlest layer of grain-like video noise and natural grain, brilliant contrast with obsidian blacks and nuanced shadows. The texture is strong in cloth and skin as well. 3D is a conversion and it’s one of the better ones, offering a good amount of front to back depth and a naturalistic appearance, however nothing stretches too far from the screen, making it always obvious this is not a native 3D production.
Audio Quality
[Rating:5/5]
An aggressive English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (48kHz/24-bit) mix is provided for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. It can definitely serve as reference material to show off any home theatre sound system, starting early with good use of both surround and back channels for discrete and ambient sounds. Overall sound has a wide dynamic range with deep, resounding lows, and excellent directional sounds panning.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3.5/5]
An acceptable amount of supplements are on offer, but the best is the animated “Graphic Novel” or motion comic, The Great Calamity.
The supplements:
Blu-ray 2D:
- Audio Commentary with Writer Seth Grahame-Smith
- The Great Calamity (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:07:43) – Motion Comic
- The Making of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 01:15:21)
- “Powerless” Music Video by Linkin Park (2.35:1; 1080p/24)
- Theatrical Trailer (2.35:1; 1080p/24; Dolby Digital 5.1)
Blu-ray 3D:
- Prometheus Trailer
- I, Robot Trailer
- DVD
- UltraViolet and iTunes Digital Copy
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:4/5]
Despite its off-putting title, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is ripe for a cult following, and filled with joyously rich action sequences, butt-kicking historical figures, and clearly delineated heroes and villains – just the sort of vampire movie we’ve been longing for, for longer than we can remember at this point.
Additional Screen Captures
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Purchase Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter on Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack at CD Universe
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–
[amazon-product]B009DZDJU6[/amazon-product]
[amazon-product]B005LAIHZE[/amazon-product]
[amazon-product]B008NEMPTO[/amazon-product]
Purchase Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter on Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Film
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
HD:[Rating:4.5/5]
3D Effect: [Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3.5/5]
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