So, my local broadcast sci-fi channel, Comet, is running a 48 hour zombie marathon. I just had the pleasure? of watching the above named flick.
The action takes place just before President Lincoln is planning to go speak after the Battle of Gettysburg. But before he can go, he learns that a zombie plague has broken out in the city of Savannah, Georgia. So, naturally, the president recruits a dozen members of the Secret Service to go with him to put down the apocalypse. It seems that he had prior experience with zombies because an outbreak had occurred in Illinois while he was a lad and thus he was uniquely qualified to deal with the situation.
When he arrives at Fort Pulaski in Georgia, he finds 2 confederate soldiers only remaining from the garrison. One is Gen. Stonewall Jackson, who refuses to cooperate with the prez. The other is a corporal named Pat Garrett. The corporal is cooperative and he and Abe become buddies. They talk about what Garrett will do after the war, and Abe advises him he should go west and become a lawman. (If unskilled in American lore, Garrett later becomes known as the sheriff who kills the outlaw, Billy the Kid.)
Abe and Pat lead an effort to get to the telegraph office in town, fighting zombies along the way. Abe is rather badazz beheadung zombies with his handmade scythe he'd saved from his days in Illinois. When he gets into town, who are the only people left alive? Why it's the woman he'd had an affair with and had proposed to many years ago. She and her illegitimate daughter are now both women of ill repute. They have also taken in a lost child by the name of Theodore Roosevelt. Yes, that one. Not having enough weapons to arm the young lad, Abe gives him a shovel and since the zombies become active when they hear loud noises, he advises him to walk softly and carry this big stick. OMG
The party make it back to the fort safely and prepare to deal with the zombies. In his pregame warmup speech, Abe says to deal with the zombies by having charity towards none and malice for all.
During the battle to escape, his old lover is zombie bit and begins to turn. Abe takes her off, presumably to dispatch her with as much mercy as possible. Gen Jackson comes around and then heroically sacrifices himself to save the others.
Flash forward a couple of days and Lincoln delivers his now famous Gettysburg address. Of course almost all of the lines come from dialog he'd had previously with the members of the hunting party. But wait! His paramour from Savannah is not dead! He'd taken her to a farm so the doctors could find a cure for zombie disease. He goes to visit her in early April of 1865, (the day before he gets shot at the theatre.) While talking to her she bites him. He then blows her head off!
But wait! Before she dies, he tells her that he has learned that one of the Secret Service agents on the trip had been an imposter. He was really the actor, John Wilkes Booth who was now holed up in a boarding house plotting to have him killed. Now knowing he is going to die of zombie plague, Abe sends him a message telling him of his plans to attend Ford's Theatre that night.
Whew. I'm thrilled and exhausted!
