Is vampire film slaying Lincoln legacy?

WDTN TV

Updated: Jun 22, 2012 6:35 PM

SPRINGBORO, Ohio (WDTN) — If Jim Crabtree's honest with you, he'll tell you he was always cut out for the job.

"Someone said you have to be tall and you have to have a black beard and dark hair and you have to be ugly," Crabtree says. "I said would two out of three do and he said don't worry about it, you have all three."

All kidding aside, there's no doubt as an impersonator, Crabtree is a good looking Abraham Lincoln.

But thanks to the new movie, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" many people might be looking at Jim a little differently.

"I think most people will realize it is a fantasy," Crabtree says.

But others are worried that the movie may drive a stake through the heart of Lincoln's legacy.

Diane Buchanan-Johnson isn't just a member of the Lincoln fan club. She's the president, presiding over the Lincoln Society of Dayton, which is trying to raise money for a statue of Lincoln outside the Montgomery County Courthouse.

She doesn't think the movie represents the better angles of our nature.

"I believe it kind of denigrates the great things a great American did for this country and saved us in a very difficult time," Buchanan-Johnson says.

So will something just more than four score and seven minutes long changes people's views on Lincoln or will the movie get them more interested in his real heroic deeds?

Sometimes it helps to go straight to the source.

"I think he might look at it and laugh," Crabtree says. "It's a fun thing. You can do it and it doesn't bother me."

If you want to see Jim as Abraham Lincoln he'll be out at Rave Motion Pictures at 6:30 on Saturday.

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