OH. MY. GOD.
I... I don't..... I don't know why I keep doing this to myself. I must have a inner, hidden masochist that just really loves to come out and torture the conscience "me"
In the interest of full disclosure, *I* am not the one who wanted to watch this. My son asked me to put it on while we were digging through Netflix streaming flicks. He saw it and said, "Let's watch that!" I should've known better.
Where to begin?
I know: First off,  Asylum for even making this film!
Now that that's out of the way, let's begin...
Here's the description of the movie, courtesy of IMDB: "While the Civil War rages on, President Abraham Lincoln must undertake an even more daunting task - destroying the Confederate Undead."
Ummm, yeah, ok.
Right off the bat, I have to admit - this is the WORST movie I've ever seen that contained zombies. Period. And this is from a dude who has seen Children of the Living Dead, Contagium, and Day of the Dead '08, ok? The zombies are a weak force to reckon with at best. Most of them spent their time standing in one spot while people like Abe, John Wilkes Booth (yes, you read that right) and countless other historical figures just walk up to them and either chop their head off (Lincoln seemed to do a lot of this with his retractable - almost 'switchblade'-like - scythe), shoot them (which they didn't seem to do a lot of for whatever reason - even though everyone was fucking carrying guns!), or just stick them in the eye or neck with a blade of some sort.
Really?
-sigh-
The story starts off like this: Abraham Lincoln is a child, and he walks into his parents bedroom to find his father dying saying, "I tried, but you'll have to do it, son." His father dies, and sure enough, in the shadows there's Abe's mom chained to the bed and she's... wait for it.. waaaaait for it. A ZOMBIE! <insert not-so-shocked facial expression here> So, he picks up a scythe that's laying close by, tells his mom he loves her and chops off her head. He then breaks the handle of his scythe in half over his knee (strong kid, eh?) and suddenly, from that point on, Abe must be the master of all zombie slayers (Did I just say that last sentence out loud?  ). I think he must've been about 12 years old in that scene, I'm not sure, but whatever.
The special effects were laughable at best. When there was a zombie 'decapitation' scene it was glaringly obvious that the zombie and the actor slaying the zombie weren't even filmed in the shot together - and it was something it seemed the filmmakers didn't even to try to cover up. It's as if they said on set, "fuck it, we'll fix that in post" - but they never bothered to do so! WTF!? That's not the case with all of the zombie killings, but 99% of the decapitations were exactly like that. Most of the other zombies just stand around doing nothing, even when people would walk right by them. They didn't even seem to pose a threat except in certain situations where it might have made a difference to the story (ie: taking someone out to move the story along). This movie, while it has "VS. Zombies" in the title, seemed to put the zombies in as an afterthought. Laughable.
Oh, have I mentioned the "token black guy" that follows Abe around in the entire movie? I know this was done because Lincoln is the one who freed the slaves here, but was it really necessary to have this dude following him around everywhere to push the point of Abe's non-prejudicial ways? NO! The movie has nothing to do with slaves or anything of that nature, so that was a completely unnecessary character who doesn't really do anything worthwhile anyway. He just follows Abe around and takes his orders. Kinda like a.......slave, right?! 
There was one scene, and I'll try to keep this spoiler free, where "Stonewall" Jackson had to walk - not run, WALK - through a crowd of zombies through a tight hallway to accomplish a task - and guess what? This entire crowd of zombies that he was shoulder-to-shoulder with didn't take a single bite out of him, give him a single scratch, NOTHING, until he accomplished what he set out to do. Then he just lazily falls on the ground and THEN all the zombies start attacking. Were they waiting for a cue or something before they bit the dude? I mean, seriously, I know I'm supposed to "suspend belief" when I watch a film - I didn't realize I was supposed to take my brain out of my skull, put it in a jar, and not put it back until the film was done.
So zombies won't even pay attention to you when you're walking right past them, but how does "Stonewall" Jackson eventually get the zombies attention to bring them to a 'trap' set by Abe & Co.? He starts blaring his trumpet from high above the walls of their little compound they're in. So zombies don't care when people walk by them, but play "Taps" or something similar on a trumpet and they come shambling on over? GTFO of here with that shit!
Ok, I will give the movie at least one or two props: First, Bill Oberst, Jr. didn't do a bad job as Lincoln. He was actually somewhat believable. His dialogue was pretty iffy, but I blame that on the writers, not the actor. He probably could've pulled off a good Lincoln in a proper Lincoln movie, but I digress...
Another thing that was interesting: the way they connected John Wilkes Booth's shooting of Abraham Lincoln at the Ford Theater was interesting, however, I called that moment 20 minutes into the film. It doesn't come as a surprise, considering the circumstances both IRL and in the movie. That's all I'll say about that, as I don't want to spoil this wonderful gem of a flick for those who might be insane enough to watch it. (Please, for the love of all that is holy, don't. I'm just sayin'.....)
Overall, the movie just meanders with no real plot (other than killing zombies) and has no real "climax" whatsoever. In fact, even my wife turned to me 60 minutes in and said "what's the point of this story? There's no real plot, there's no real movement of the story, it just...'is' and it's boring!" 
It's 96 minutes of my life I'll never get back, and I'm not too happy about it. I kinda wish I would've re-watched Sharktopus rather than invest the time in this. I realize the people who made this movie (GOD DAMN YOU ASYLUM!) were just riding the coattails of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, but geez... at least make an attempt that isn't eye-roll inducing.
Pray this never ends up on your TV. It's horror, that's for sure: it's horrific anyone could possibly be subjected to a film like this.
Lou's shame rating: 2  out of 10.
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Originally Posted by AcesandEights
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