By David Futrelle
I‘m briefly moving away from the main focus of this blog to bring to you an important scoop from the world of entertainment.
It has come to my attention that there are significant historical inaccuracies in the 2012 film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
As you may know, this film depicts Lincoln’s secret history as a vampire hunter, both before and during his presidency, as well as the Confederate Army’s use of vampires on the front lines in the Civil War.
But it turns out the film is not entirely historically accurate, as documented by the anonymous scholars behind the Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) Goofs page on IMDb. Here are some of the most egregious errors, quoted directly from the source.
Mary Todd Lincoln grabs and uses a Spencer 1860 repeating carbine at Gettysburg; however, Spencer carbines were not present at the Battle of Gettysburg. Union Brigadier General George A. Custer’s Michigan cavalry unit did use full-length Spencer *rifles* in the battle, but there were no carbine-length variants, like the one used by Mary Todd Lincoln, in service at the time.
I hardly need to remind you how important it is not to romanticize Mary Todd Lincoln’s role in the battle against the Confederate vampire army at Gettysburg. as heroic as her actions on that day really were.
Little Willie is shown playing with toys in January or February of 1862. His toy fort is flying the Thomas Jefferson Flag – 15 stripes and 15 stars – which was never used after 1818. It is very unlikely that he has a 44-year-old toy or that his father President Lincoln wouldn’t make sure he’d have the right flag.
This may seem a small detail, but it is crucial to get every detail correct when telling the important story of Abraham Lincoln’s totally ass-kicking life as a dude who secretly killed vampires with an ax.
At the ball where Abraham dances with Mary, the music playing is Estudiantina waltz, or Band of Students Waltz. The Estudiantina waltz, or Band of Students Waltz is a musical arrangement, made in 1883, by Emil Waldteufel, which would be his Opus 191, No. 4. Its melody was composed earlier in 1881 by Paul Lacome, with lyrics by J. de Lau Lusignan.
Embarrassing! I’m sure every movie viewer with an encyclopedic knowledge of 19th century waltz history winced when they heard this in the middle of what purports to be a historically accurate movie about Abraham Lincoln murdering vampires.
Abraham expresses to Henry an interest in becoming a vampire hunter when he’s about 20, i.e. around 1829. Henry shows Abe a magic lantern slide show including several photographic portraits in Daguerreotype style which was not around until about 1838, the date of the first known portrait photographs. In 1829, only the most primitive, experimental, still photographs requiring extremely long exposure times were possible.
Another small but telling error that can only serve to undermine confidence in the historical accuracy of the film and give ammunition to those who contend that Abraham Lincoln wasn’t actually a vampire hunter at all and that vampires aren’t even real.
Lincoln’s stove pipe hat supports the full weight of Mary Todd. Any hat of this sort would easily collapse under the slightest weight of anyone’s foot.
AND EVERYONE KNOWS THAT! This error is so obvious and egregious I find myself wondering if the director of this film — Lincoln scholar and Night Watch director Timur Bekmambetov — is just straight up taunting those of us who still believe in historical truth?
Or, perhaps even more alarmingly, is it possible that he is secretly working for the Abraham Lincoln Vampire Truthers, that motley gang of conspiracy theorists who try to poison the discourse with claims that Abraham Lincoln was just a great President and not actually an ass-kicking vampire killer at all.
Everyone knows that hat skepticism is often the first step towards outright Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter denialism!
Timur Bekmambetov, I have some serious questions for you. If that even is your real name!
(Note: It is his real name.)
We Hunted the Mammoth is independent and ad-free, and relies entirely on readers like you for its survival. If you appreciate our work, please send a few bucks our way! Thanks!
I agree with Aunt Podger. I don’t get this at all. Are we supposed to just not note interesting innacuracies whenever a film doesn’t 100 percent depict things that happened? Perhaps I’m not allowed to note innacuracies in Titanic just because the characters didn’t really exist? This is just mocking people for their fandom.
There’s also no need to be fucking rude, wt:cm.
I’m sure people have said this already – but AL:VH is a movie that says the antebellum South was run by monsters who fed off the blood of others for power, so you know it’s already one of the more accurate movies about the Civil War.