As we conclude coverage of our fascinating and wonderfully strange journey to Springfield, Il to screen footage from Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and meet with the filmmakers behind the upcoming historical fantasy-horror film, we bring you three new videos – each of which offers a flavor of the events we experienced.
The first is the “making of” featurette that played along with the trailer and additional sequences that we were able to see (you can see both the teaser and a description of the footage HERE). The second is the Tim Burton video intro that we were greeted with prior to viewing said footage. As you will see, it is deliciously old-school ‘Burtonesque’ and perfectly bizarre: out of sync, black and white, and replete with Victorian-garbed performance-art extras. A producer on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Burton was in London working on his own vampy offering, Dark Shadows, and was as such unable to attend the event in Springfield.
The third video features Vampire Hunter director Timur Bekmambetov, star Benjamin Walker, co-screenwriter and novelist Seth Grahame-Smith and producer Jim Lemley on the same tour of Lincoln’s restricted vault that we journalists were privileged to experience. Fox did an incredible job of planting some thematic props amidst the real displays in the museum, as well as the actual artifacts in the vault.
As you will see in the video, a cane-as-gun and axe-as-gun are presented as if they belonged to our 16th President. Our guide was so earnest that I must confess that at one in the morning, after a 6AM plane ride, two beers and a full work day, it took me a moment to get wise the the elaborate ruse being perpetrated :-). Once we got to the Robert Lincoln’s “diary entries on the habits of the undead,” I was pretty clear on what was happening. The stake put the final nail in the coffin (yep).
Still, finding the props amongst the real artifacts was like a three-dimensional “Where’s Waldo?” as only Salvador Dali would imagine it. In other words, fun. And seeing the actual historical treasures was humbling.
To get your own sense of the event, take a look at the videos provided below:
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter “Making of” Featurette:
Amazingly Hypnotic Tim Burton intro:
Tour of Lincoln’s Vault with Timur Bekmambetov, Seth Grahame-Smith, Benjamin Walker and Jim Lemley:
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Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter opens in theaters on June 22nd, 2012.
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