ABCs of Death 2

26 other directors with the total creative freedom granted to 26 other sick and crazy horror stories. Always for all tastes and for those who do not like some short films there are many others that can certainly like

I must say, when I've learnt of the second chapter of this ABC Horror experiment, I was rather skeptic. The first film had some fine moments, but overall was simply a vulgar display of all things nauseating and a complete waste of a fine idea... So why should this one be any different?

Well, I'm happy to say that this second chapter is different enough to be worthy of a slight higher rating in my opinion. First and foremost, the opening music... Wow! Not since Fantomas' masterpiece in Rosemary's Baby have I heard such horrific intense use of "la la la". Even if you never intend on watching this, check out the theme song. Second, while still infected with gore and revolting scenes, more parts than the first film were artistic, creative and worthy. I was personally very happy to see Israeli filmmakers Keshales and Papushado (made famous by Rabies/Kalevet and Big Bad Wolves) in the letter F.

All in all, I am still disappointed. I believe both films have given way, way too much room to scenes that are nothing more than gore and filth, and I wish they hadn't. What a waste of excellent talent and an excellent idea... If you're a gore fan, by all means, watch both films one after the other, you're in for a treat...

I liked the original ABCs of Death. I loved the idea, and have seen quite a few of the directors' work. Unfortunately, it seems some of the directors approached didn't get the memo, and gave very little effort in their submissions. G for Gravity and M for Miscarriage spring to mind. Then you have your wild/crazy efforts like F,J,W and Z which I wasted minutes of my life watching.

The good news is that the ABCs of Death 2 is far more consistent in the quality. It starts strong with 'A' by E.L.Katz, an amusing tale of a hit-gone-wrong (or has it?) and carried on with great gusto and a well-paced mix of both fun ('B') and dread ('C' and 'D'). In fact, by the time you get to 'Q' during the second half of the film, the quality is almost totally improved and maintains a high level until the film ends.

And what an ending.

'Z' is not just (in my humble opinion) the best short film of the bunch, but also one of the best short films I've ever seen. I wouldn't eat during this one if I were you, and I'd turn all the lights out as well. Be prepared to be thoroughly shocked. It's not quite as disgusting as 'L for Libido' from the first film (my favourite short of that bunch), but is a quite unique take on motherhood and features some quite remarkable, and disgusting, special effects, all of which I think I believe were done by the director in his own living room!

I'll summarise the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, so to speak:

The Great: AZ The very Good: BCFJKRSV The OK: DEGHIMNOQTUWXY The downright ugly: LP

So for your money, you get 2 excellent shorts, 2 awful ones, and the rest are all decent. That's a pretty good run for an anthology-style film like this, I think. :)

ABCs of Death 2 revisits the idea of its predecessor of having 26 segments by 26 directors and is far more moderate and less creative.

ABCs of Death 2 is a anthology film featuring twenty six shorts about death. As the opening sequence explains the concept: "The following feature film was created by 26 directors from around the world. Each director was given a letter of the alphabet and asked to choose a word. They then created a short tale of death that related to their chosen word. They had complete artistic freedom regarding the content of their segments."

The entire approach of this horror film is intriguing and ambitiously risky. As with the original ABCs of Death, the directors enlisted to participate in the film are typically up-and-comers of the horror genre.

The film is exciting because those creating short segments have complete creative control and do not have to sacrifice their art for the sake of distributors and producers; a rarity in the film industry. Further, audiences are subjecting themselves to a wide array of subject matter ranging from the silly comedies to the stomach churning perverse. The mystery of the word and director only being revealed after the viewer has subjected themselves to the full three minute segment.

The first ABCs of Death was an experience. There was a nice range of types of shorts. Some were downright ridiculous, some were incredibly disturbing, some were scary and some were funny. Some segments were so odd the viewer begged for its ending in the hope the next one would be better F, Z; others were memorably fantastic D, Q, X and everywhere in-between.

The same can be said for ABCs of Death 2 but to a lesser extent. Overall the execution of the films on average are better but the outliers that represented the best and worse from its predecessor are significantly diminished in the second edition. ABCs of Death 2's segments are relatively safe and restrained, not nearly as creative, and impotently lacking satisfying conclusions.

While some were good, none are memorable enough to stick with me a few years later like the original. My favorites were E, J, M, V and Z and the worst, in my opinion were H, P, R. The ones I felt were good up until the ending were: L, K, Q . The ones I thought were sadly expected but not necessarily bad were: N, X.

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ABCs of Death 2 is an improvement on the first one in almost every way. The short films are much enjoyable but at some point, I asked myself: is this good? The first one contained some really weird shorts and it was so bizarre that it was enjoyable after a while. This, contains very down to earth stories most of the time but there are still some weird stuff in there. Anyway, the quality of the whole is improved. The first one made me think sometimes, L was my favourite but in this, there were so many twisted and chilling stories that really got me, because some of them were so believable. It is nothing groundbreaking, but check this one out if you liked the first one.