'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' debuts axe-swinging teaser trailer

Seems the old rail-splitter has become the head-slicer.

After new photos from the history/horror mash-up Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter debuted last week, EW’s brothers and sisters over at Time.com have revealed the exclusive new trailer for the Tim Burton-produced thriller, due in theaters June 22.

Click through to see …

The movie is directed by Wanted‘s Timur Bekmambetov and based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the upcoming Unholy Night.)

EW has already had its say at length, so I’ll leave it to Time’s Steven James Snyder to offer his take on our beloved 16th president’s secret war against bloodsuckers. Suffice to say, this movie lives or dies based on whether audiences can suspend their disbelief about the outrageous premise and just go with it. So what’s the verdict, Inside Moviegoers?

One stroke of genius: Using Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around” as ominous narration by cutting and pasting different lyrics from the song together.

Though separated from Lincoln’s era by nearly a century and a half, the song — one of Cash’s last — is taken from language in the Bible’s Book of Revelations, providing an apocalyptic backdrop to the actions of Benjamin Walker’s Lincoln (and giving the entire enterprise a sheen of Americana by way of Cash’s signature straight-from-the-heartland voice.)

“And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder …”

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‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’ frees bloodsuckers to be evil again