Benjamin Walker (Alan Markfield/Twentieth Century Fox)

The humorist Sarah Vowell has proudly said that Abraham Lincoln’s speaking voice was reportedly a far cry from the rich baritones of actors who have portrayed him over the years. In fact, Honest Abe may have had a squeaky voice not unlike hers. Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer, who has written dozens of books on the iconic president and the bitter national conflict that plagued his tenure, pored through contemporary reports of Lincoln’s oratory and came to the conclusion that his voice was high and shrill. Decades of cinematic Lincolns from Walter Huston to Henry Fonda to Brendan Fraser and Lance Henriksen have given us the Great Emancipator as their directors and our dreams would have him. Inaccurately. Why not throw vampires into the mix?

Director Timur Bekmambetov is best known for a pair of well-regarded vampire movies in his native Russia, Day Watch and Night Watch. He brings an outsiders’ eye to the American icon, and this directorial distance may have prevented Seth Grahame-Smith’s screenplay (adapting his own book) from descending to the knowing camp that marred his script for Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows. Young Abe develops a vengeful taste for vampire blood after witnessing his mother succumbing to the fanged nemesis Jack Barts (Marton Csokas, a veteran of the Lord of the Rings trilogy). Lincoln learns the trade of vampire hunting from scruffy Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), who for some reason wears sunglasses a lot (hmm!).

The cast is a mixed bag, but contains at least one inspired choice. Benjamin Walker’s Lincoln does not exactly radiate presidential gravitas, his voice neither squeaky nor resonant. But his awkwardness and bewilderment as the young Lincoln plays well with what amounts to an episode of presidential Karate Kid, and the stoic tone he takes on when he becomes President makes him a natural straight man. Which isn’t to say the script doesn’t evoke laughter. How else could an audience respond to a scene in which Abraham confesses to Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) that he hunts vampires? Or when vampire leader Adam (Rufus Sewell) meets with Jefferson Davis? The brooding Sewell is the casting coup here. I would never have thought to make this distinguished British actor into a Southern Gothic dandy with fangs, but he has the presence to pull it off.

Rufus Sewell (Twentieth Century Fox Corp.)

The first reels of Vampire Hunter play like a period B-movie, but the real suspension of belief comes when the plot turns to revisionist history. Lincoln puts away childish things and his specially treated vampire-hunting axe for more pressing issues like leading a nation through the Civil War. But Adam and his minions are still out there, and it turns out that plantation owners aren’t the only ones with an interest in maintaining the slave trade: guess who stands to lose a vital source of fresh blood if Lincoln frees the slaves? It’s a bold premise but not an idle one. Don’t politicians treat the people as commodities to be consumed and discarded? Thus the wheels are set in motion for a battle between good and evil, at where else but Gettysburg.

If you see it, see it in two dimensions. Master cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (aka Zooey’s dad) shot the film, but you’d never know from the terrible 3-D treatment that muddies action scenes already hard to follow. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter plays with history, and at key junctures seems to dismiss laws of space and time. It may not raise your kid’s test scores, but it’s pulpy, escapist fun.

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Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov.
Written by Seth Grahame-Smith.
With Benjamin Walker, Dominic Cooper, Anthony Mackie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Rufus Sewell.
Rated R for vampires, disunion and a little bit of sexuality.
Opens today at all the multiplexes.