Film features Honest Abe as a vampire

CHAMPAIGN, Ill., Feb. 13 (UPI) -- "The Transient," a short horror film that imagines 16th U.S. President Abraham Lincoln as a blood-sucking vampire, has hit the Internet.

Recent University of Illinois graduate Chris Lukeman and producer Anne Shivers, a UI senior majoring in history, told The Champaign (Ill.) News-Gazette their 25-minute-long movie wasn't intended to make any political or anti-Lincoln statements.

"You can criticize the premise, but he's the most dignified character in the movie, regardless of the fact that he's the antagonist," said Lukeman, who is now a second-year student at the Southern Illinois University School of Law.

Lukeman went on to say he and Shivers, who are from the Springfield area, enjoyed "using some of the emotional baggage that people have with Lincoln and having fun with it."

"He's really one of the few 'rock stars' of American history," Shivers said in a news release. "He's a larger-than-life figure to every American, which makes him an ideal character to put in a movie like this."

The majority of the lines spoken by well-known Lincoln interpreter Michael Krebs in "The Transient," a nod to 1980s action-comedy-horror flicks, are actual Lincoln quotes, the News-Gazette said.

"The Transient" can be watched online by going to www.killvampirelincoln.com or Googling "Transient Lincoln vampire," the newspaper said.