The ABCs of Death

I am not sure if I was expecting the wrong thing, of if most of the directors went in the wrong direction... But I was thinking this was supposed to be a horror anthology with an interesting concept. In the end it felt more like a competition for the segment that is the most absurd, outrageous, ultra-violent, hyper-sexual, or all of the above combined. For the most part this movie was insulting and left me embarrassed that I sat trough half of it.

Perhaps less than 10 segments were good. There were a few clever ones. I don't want to name any letters to ruin anything.

I would not recommend this to anyone unless you NEED to see it for you self to satisfy your curiosity or if you are really into senseless extreme movies.

I enjoyed the bits by Marcel Sarmiento, Andrew Traucki, Thomas Malling, Lee Hardcastle, Ben Wheatley, Kaare Andrews, Jon Schnepp, Jason Eisener. Just to give respect where it is due.

The ABC's of Death offers audiences twenty-six different ways to die. The film is an anthology where 27 different directors produced 26 different chapters each corresponding to a letter of the alphabet. Given free rein, the only rule they had to apply was corresponding their short film to their assigned letter which would represent the manner of death that is portrayed on screen.

The producers then set out to find the best, most eclectic group of directors willing to participate in this ambitious project. Their efforts resulted in names such as Ti West (House of the Devil), Jason Eisner (Hobo With a Shotgun), Yoshihiro Nishimura (Machine Girl) and Adam Wingard (V/H/S) each attaching themselves to a specific letter in which to thrill, repulse and amuse the audience.

The film shorts go in the order of the alphabet (A,B,C..etc) with director Nacho Vigalondo (Time Crimes) first out of the gate with his A-themed short titled Apocalypse. Next up was the B-themed short, Bigfoot followed by the letter D's entry titled Dogfight. I think you get the picture from here.

The shorts all range in running time, but none is more than a few minutes (all 26 letters of the alphabet are completed within a 123 minute span) and without restriction of studio interference, the directors brought their style of horror, humor and hubris to the platform. The shorts include multiple languages and showcase even animation and claymation.

As with any anthology, there are highs and lows. We loved 'A is for Apocalypse', 'D is for Dogfight', 'F is for Fart', 'T is for Toilet' and 'Y is for Youngbuck'. Letters 'V' and 'K' were also slickly produced on their $5,000 budgets and don't even get us started on 'Z' that had gigantic penises with swords and a whole bunch of other visuals that had us exiting the theatre just a tad disturbed.

'X is for XXL' was possibly the entry with the most blood spewing and 'L is for Libido' was just plain weird. The most disappointing entry was easily Ti West's 'M is for Miscarriage'. It was neither interesting nor involving and considering he may be the most commercial name who contributed to the effort, it has to be considered the biggest misfire. Adam Wingard got stuck with the difficult letter 'Q' and pulled off a humorous entry that was a welcomed diversion from the otherwise violent entries that preceded it.

As I have long complained in many of my reviews that films are often over long and stretched beyond their paper think story lines for the purposes of achieving the standard 90-minute running time range, The ABC's of Death was a welcomed treat. We were able to sit back and enjoy the films without a bunch of subplots or unnecessary character development clogging up my time investment. So if you didn't like 'K is for Klutz' then wait through the five minutes and give 'L is for Libido' a chance.

However, the change of pace might not be for all audiences. We found our screening at this year's Toronto International Film Festival to be filled with an audience that began to sway in energy and excitement as we plodded through the later letters of the English alphabet.

But we were not one of the distracted. We were invested through all 26 entries and it was fun to watch a short and try and determine what the letter designation would represent in the title card that comes only after the film.

Outrageous, audacious and even courageous, The ABC's of Death will be considered an experiment that all horror film fans should experience. It is sure to shock, entertain and provide plenty of after screening conversation over which entries you thought were better than others or what worked or failed.

www.killerreviews.com

The ABC's of Death is a horror anthology in which 26 directors are given a letter of the alphabet, they have to come up with one word starting with that letter and are given creative freedom on how to incorporate that into their 'death' segment. Each short begins and ends with the colour red, the rest is a wild, weird and grotesque trip into some of the demented minds behind horror.

This film is a classic example of interesting idea, poor execution. The biggest problem with the film is how uneven it is. Giving total freedom to 26 different directors is a blessing and a curse. The curse aspects come from how weird some of these are and how lazy the others appear to be. Finishing the film I can only remember a handful of them and even less are ones that I enjoyed. I guess I'll break it down by letter:

A - an exercise in torture with a twist ending that doesn't really serve the story.

B - Here's one that is a lazy attempt at a horrific bedtime story that doesn't end well for the storyteller.

C - Groundhog day with death, a half realized idea.

D - Probably one of the better ones that people like. Well shot, good set ups and executions.

E - I forgot what this one was and had to look it up, which should tell you for forgettable it is.

F - This one had me scratching my head in hilarious confusion. I thought the Japanese were weird before, this one shines a new light on everything.

G - A POV take that bores you to death.

H - Another humorous and odd concoction of giant dogs and foxes during WWII.

I - One of many that leaves you confused about what the director intended.

J - Something Takishi Miike would probably make if he were to take part.

K - A cartoon about a piece of poop that kills a woman...funny? I don't know.

L - Another entry from the Japanese market, another uncomfortable sequence that makes you wonder what they are drinking over there.

M - Ti West's entry, the laziest one of the bunch that runs about 2 minutes.

N - A comedic entry about a bird that should keep his mouth shut.

O - Visually striking, lacking story.

P - Realism about prostitution and the lengths one will go for her family. Icky ending.

Q - A self parody about the filmmakers who are upset they were given the letter Q.

R - From the guy who brought you A Serbian Film...nuff said.

S - A tale about drugs, felt like an Australian entry.

T - Claymation about a poor kid who fears the toilet. I kinda liked it.

U - Second POV, only with a story and more involvement.

V - Seems the director wanted to showcase his skills as an action director more than wanting to have an entry in this anthology.

W - A youtube like entry that should have been given to someone else.

X - Great story, great gore, even if it is predictable, it is one of the better entries.

Y - Odd, weird, gross.

Z - the absolute strangest of the bunch, feels like Japanese parody porn.

So this film has more misses than hits. I can 't really recommend this because of the oddity of the entries being so weird and uneven. I would advise people to simply watch Masters of Horror if you want to watch some horror stories from masters of the genre.

Honestly this movie had huge potential. But as with most anthologies like this, there are going to be a few bad bad ones. And trust me, this movie had its fair share of duds. However, some of the good ones were L, X, D, A, N, and R. The rest are either average or pathetic. (For example the letter F almost made me want to turn off the movie) If you're into horror I would give it a watch, but don't expect a masterpiece

Concept of the anthology: 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 shorts, and all must have at least one death and open and close with the color red. To say the anthology is a mixed bag is obvious. You have some good films here mixed with a lot of bad ones mixed with a whole lot of forgettable ones. "The ABCs of Death" just proves how incredibly hard it is to make a good short film, and I'm sad to say the bad far outweighs the good.

The first decent short does not come all the way until the letter L, which is almost halfway through the alphabet. It's not until you get to the second half of the letters where you finally begin to see some good shorts, my favorite being Q, directed by Adam Wingard. Other notable filmmakers involved include Ti West (M) and Nacho Vigalondo (A). Unfortunately, West's segment feels incredibly lazy and shot in five minutes while Vigalondo's segment rehashes the same apocalypse premise we've seen many times before. T is a notable segment because it was for a competition, and it's one of the best ones here. X is the most violent (and is also very good), which isn't surprising coming from French filmmaker Xavier Gens ("Frontier(s)").

Shorts F, J, and Z are all Japanese, which you think might be a good thing, but they are huge stinkers in the bunch, especially "F is for Fart." It's pretty much self-explanatory. Another one that I hated is W, appropriately titled "WTF!" O is the most visually breathtaking with uses of slow-mo and sound effects, but it's pretty much style over substance. But hey, compared to most of the shorts you see, it's a welcome change. G seems to be the most pointless one where all you see is a guy surfing. Seriously, I'm not joking. That's all there is.

I guess I was a bit mad watching this because, as an aspiring filmmaker, if someone were to give me $5000 to make a short, I would work very hard in creating something good. Seeing all the wasted effort from most of the filmmakers here just angered me. Overall, "The ABCs of Death," while a neat idea, is mostly just a collection of forgettable to incredibly bad shorts sprinkled with very few good ones.

The Good: L, N, P, Q, T, U, X // The Bad: E, F, G, H, J, M, W, Z // The Best: Q // The Worst: W // The Forgettable: All others not listed.