MovieChat Forums > Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) Discussion > ...So since when are vampires weak again...

...So since when are vampires weak against silver?

posted 12 years ago by sandroalgra
24 replies | jump to latest

Yeah, I know. There are so many vampire tales that mess with the rules nowadays. Sometimes sunlight is fatal to vampires, sometimes it merely weakens them and sometimes it just makes them sparkle...

Still, the whole silver weakness, Isn't that a characteristic attributed to werewolves? It was a really important focus of the plot. Then why not make Lincoln a werewolf hunter?

I've seen a different subject on this board criticising the fact that vampires can't kill each other in this movie. I also commented on that one. Aside from that, all vampires can become invisible. Then why aren't they invisible all the time? It would've worked if it were only the mightiest vampires that had such powers.

The issue is that when you take too many liberties with an existing format, the whole concept of that format becomes obsolete. It felt like they got stuck writing the story and decided to give the vampires new abilities and weaknesses to tie it all up. That's a very lazy kind of way to avoid plot holes. It's like when Superman was suddenly able to reverse time or the refrigerator in Indiana Jones that was suddenly able to withstand nukes. Imagine you're writing a James Bond movie and you can't figure out how he'd be able to escape death, so you decide to give him psychic powers.

That said, I still think this movie was enjoyable. The flaws don't matter that much since it's a movie that doesn't take itsself seriously and doesn't seem to care about anything. A little more thought just would've made it a more solid action flick.

[–] Prascovia 12 years ago

I guess in Buffy and Blade vampires were affected by Silver too but I'm not quite sure, but I don't think it's the first time the whole "Vampires are weak to Silver " thing is mentioned in a movie.

Madness is rare in individuals but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule

[–] Abuhin 12 years ago

Yeah, lot's of folklore says silver works against lots of supernatural monsters. This isn't the first movie to use it. As said, Blade trilogy, and also Dracula (2000) are a few.

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] starwolf 12 years ago

Sandroalgra,

I don't know where you are getting your rules for vampires, but since they are fictional creatures people can pretty much make up such rules as they like. The "existing format" as you call it has so many variations now, and most of them different significantly from Bram Stoker's depiction, that there can't be an official vampire canon.

[–] rdanderson91 12 years ago

I don't think there are set rules for vampires. True Blood sunlight burns them up....Twilight sunlight turns them to fairies...I guess it depends lol

"Frankly. my dear, I don't give a damn."

[–] vasq6876 12 years ago

There are many different legends of Vampires. Some of them don't even drink blood. Some of the legends apparently mention a weakness to silver. Silver has actually had magical abilities attributed to it for centuries. It's even been said it was protection against witches. Which Vampire attributes a movie follows largely depends on their own internal logic.

I'm so ugly...that's ok 'cause so are you.

[–] billycan 12 years ago

They aren't vampires in "Twilight", they are pedophile wankers. A different breed, entirely.

[–] moviehawg59 12 years ago

Yeah, when I was growing up, watching Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee ... It was:
Garlic
Wooden stake in the heart
Beheading
Sunlight
Crucifixes
Holy Water
AND, oh yes ... FANGS (two of them)!
Nowadays, you can add:
Silver
Fangs (sometimes a WHOLE mouthful,as in "30 Days of Night", or,sometimes NONE, as in the
Twilight movies)!
Sunlight no longer matters (sometimes)!
Oh, and one other thing ... In the "old" days, the vampire almost always entered the victims house
at night and feasted ... but, now they must be "invited" in (this requirement seems to be gaining steam)? I think you can pretty much make your own rules (as long as you have the backing to make a "vampire" movie)!

[–] nyjack 12 years ago

"True Blood" vampires can be tied up with silver wires. Am not thrilled with vamps that can go about during the day though.

[–] starwolf 12 years ago

Am not thrilled with vamps that can go about during the day though.

Bram Stoker's Dracula could walk around in the day.

[–] nyjack 12 years ago

Stoker was not the best of writers and in this case not terribly consistent. Why would the count ship himself in a coffin to England? Why not just book passage on a passenger ship? He'd still be able to prey on the passengers and leave the crew to get him safely there. Or why a ship when a train could have taken him more quickly to a port on the Channel. I remember the book as something of a slog to get through. In any case, humans needed some protection and sunlight is as good as any. There would be no purpose to going into the coffin if that is so. They are "creatures of the night" for a reason. My feelings on the matter.

[–] saywhen63 12 years ago

Sorry. They create the script as they see fit. Now, Beowulf was real.

[–] ghostgate2001 12 years ago

"Why would the count ship himself in a coffin to England? Why not just book passage on a passenger ship?"

The business with the coffin is yet another "forgotten" vampire rule. IIRC, in many of the older films and books, vampires are required to bed down on their native soil, i.e. the soil of their homeland. It is this soil that allows them to regenerate.

So, in these older tales, vampires generally pack some of that soil in a coffin (which also provides them with protection from sunlight during daytime) and, voila, they have a neat portable "bed" they can travel with.

Ruining the soil with holy water or religious objects was also a valid way of weakening the vampire, by denying him his sanctuary and the ability to regenerate wounds by resting there anymore.

[–] LittleMissDysthymia 12 years ago

Actually, Dracula had to ship himself in his coffin to England because vampires cannot cross running water otherwise. (This includes the ocean, rivers, moats, and even the tiniest of currents. With modern cities having so many water, sewer and drainage pipes under them Dracula would find himself crippled.)

Witty closing remarks have been replaced by massive head trauma and severe hemorrhaging.

[–] rciafardone-2 11 years ago

Dude.. total fail. Stoker's Dracula needed the dirt from his homeland, and sunlight didn't kill him but did debilitate him, so coffin would actually protect him during his sleep. Remember that Dracula was a true mystical creature, bound by rules he knew but didn't make and probably didn't fully understand, it was a curse, not a "disease" that made him immortal like in some contemporary takes, he knew that we was damned to hell and "immortality" was just a temporally delay.

There is only one thing that is constant throughout the whole vampire spectrum: they drink/drain blood/life force. Everything else is fair play, even... damn myself for saying this but... even sparkling skin.

Silver and "cold iron" are pretty common as physical bane for magical forces so...

Life is not an illusion, you are too dumb to imagine all this crap.

[–] JSFound 12 years ago

I would argue that for any monster and mythology, the rules can be changed and played with if doing so creates a good story. Since all of this is fiction anyway, it would be silly to stick to hard and fast rules. Sorry, for me. I know there are purists out there and I respect their opinion. Though I think we can agree that it's not the breaking of rules but the stories themselves that are important. Sometimes, a work is so bad that it does both--significantly change the rules so vampires are completely changed, and produce a terrible story. I'm speaking of course about high school emo vampires in the Twilight books.

[–] sandroalgra 12 years ago

I agree with you. I never mentioned I'm a purist. I just felt they changed quite a lot in this movie.

[–] ExistFilms 12 years ago

The best interpretation that I've heard of is that Dracula was originally Judas Iscariot... Thus the silver he accepted to betray Christ is the same as any other silver wielded by any vampire hunter. It burns and ultimately kills him. Otherwise, *beep* it, who cares why silver works =P

Intelligence cannot be measured by knowledge, but by imagination...
- Albert Einstein

[–] Henkwich_88 12 years ago

This is kind of what they give as the reason for the vampires' silver-weakness in the movie too yeah? Not about Dracula being Judas but rather that Judas asked for 30 pieces of silver to betray Christ and that god in retribution turned him into a vampire and made silver harmful to him. Something along those lines.

--

I know less than all but more than many who know less

[–] metalozon 12 years ago

It's kinda upsetting that silver is now bad for vampires also.

Imagine how annoying would be if in order to kill a werewolf you would have to stab it in the chest and cut off the head.

Stop mixing stuff up like that.

[–] murasmas 12 years ago

Silver has usually been bad for all undead, or at least effective as opposed to ignorable.

[–] PrinceOfMaine 11 years ago

I've seen a different subject on this board criticising the fact that vampires can't kill each other in this movie. I also commented on that one. Aside from that, all vampires can become invisible. Then why aren't they invisible all the time?

Silver, sunlight, etc. I do not care as long the universe the story is in is consistent. The invisibility bothered me as well because it implies that all vampires are pretty stupid to be visible while fighting. Something else almost every movie/TV series is approaching wrongly: the vampires are way too strong. If they have no particular weaknesses so that an average human has no chance of winning against a vampire, why don't they rule the world?

-
"It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it".

[–] raf-33 9 years ago

Silver is Kryptonite to just about any malevolent creature in folk lore.

Silver has always been known as a healing metal because it has antimicrobial qualities and even a few thousand years ago, long before we would ever know what bacteria were people knew that adding silver to a healing compound would stop the wound from festering. I think this made people believe it was a divine metal, and anything godly would be dangerous to something that is ungodly.

In role playing games a silver weapon can destroy any supernatural creature.

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. -Isaac Asimov

[–] Zurie 9 years ago

^This is the answer

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