I’m not an expert on American history. I’m not even American, and before tonight my knowledge of Abraham Lincoln didn’t stem far beyond acknowledging he was the tall dude with the beard who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, delivered the Gettysburg Address and was assassinated at the theatre by John Wilkes Booth. I did not, for example, know that as a young man Lincoln worked as a store clerk, reading law books in his spare time and making advances on a young lady named Mary Todd, far above his station. I didn’t know that his mother died when he was young, nor that he lost a son of his own, and I was most certainly unaware that under the secret tutelage of the mysterious Henry Sturgess he became a formidible slayer of vampires, who threatened to enslave the entire country. However, this is the premise of ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER, the new film from Timur Berkmambetov, adapted for the screen by Seth Grahame-Smith from his own best-selling novel, and the reason it proves as entertaining as its title wills it to be, is that it understands you can only sell a story this ridiculous by playing it dead straight.

That is not to say that the film doesn’t know how to have fun. On the contrary. Here, Old Abe wields a silver-tipped axe as if it were a pair of nunchucks, he strides across the roofs of burning train carriages without breaking a sweat and leaps from one stampeding horse to the next as he rids his United States of the legions of the Undead that have infested the Deep South and are steadily advancing north. But the film plays these elements side by side with recognisable historical fact, seamlessly blending elements of supernatural horror with real life events in the life of the 16th President. Smith’s script (and I’m assuming his novel, though I haven’t read it) does a great job of selling the more shameful aspects of the country’s past as an underground plot by parasitic vampires. They feed on the slaves, and nobody cares. It is only when Lincoln’s rise to power threatens to abolish slavery and cut off their food supply, that these skulking bloodsuckers are forced into action and the American Civil War is the result.

Much of the film’s success must be handed to young Benjamin Walker, who does a fantastic job portraying Lincoln, both as an axe-twirling action hero, but also as the man who united a nation. Not only does Walker bear an uncanny resemblance to Liam Neeson (a fact that has already been acknowledged in 2004’s KINSEY), but he is a dead ringer for Lincoln, particularly when dolled up in the trademark beard and top hat during his tenure in the White House. Walker has able support from Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Anthony Mackie as his wife and childhood friend respectively, although their aging seems less believable, as if the make-up department only had the budget (or the reference materials) to add 30 odd years to one of them.

Dominic Cooper has a fun time in the role of Henry Sturgess, Lincoln’s shifty mentor through the world of vampire hunting and living life with a murderous secret. Rufus Sewell lands the film’s other notable role, that of vampire leader Adam, and while he adds a glimmer of charm to this frustrated yet power-hungry immortal, the character is rather one-note and his quest to see humanity enslaved by the Undead – yadda yadda yadda – has all been heard before. Berkmambetov is only too aware that the film’s strengths lie in seeing this iconic figure cleaving vampires in twain, sending fountains of blood gushing across the screen and generally kicking some serious arse. All of which he delivers, repeatedly and with unwavering enthusiasm, accompanied by an assortment of ridiculously over the top set pieces, including the aforementioned stampede and an immolating railway bridge.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER is precisely the movie it sounds like – a rip-roaring period actioner that makes you believe its real-life hero actually did these ridiculous things. Hold it up next to other such examples, like James McTeigue’s THE RAVEN, in which Edgar Allan Poe chases a serial killer, and there is no comparison. While that film was flimsy, half-hearted and dull, Berkmambetov’s film feels energised, enthusiastic and most importantly of all, committed to delivering on its promise. It may ultimately be a one-gag movie, but by refusing to crack a smile when it can shoot you through the eye with a silver bullet instead, ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER proves a surprisingly assured slice of revisionist nonsense.