ABC 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.

A collection of 26 short films from 26 directors from all over the world, each using a different letter of the alphabet for their theme, The ABCs of Death is an ambitious experiment in horror that, although far too much of a mixed bag to prove wholly entertaining, still offers enough for fans of outrageous cinema to enjoy. Whatever your taste in horror, there will most likely be something here to cater for it, and with each segment being an average running length of just 4 minutes, if you don't like the current tale it's not long before something different comes along.

A large proportion of the films are either frustratingly weak (guilty parties: Adam Wingard, Andrew Traucki, Simon Rumley), utterly perplexing, regrettably mediocre (Angela Bettis, come on down) or just plain bad (yes, Ti West, I'm looking at you—again!), threatening to make the film more of an 'Eh?-to-Zzzzzz' of horror than an A-to-Z (yeah, OK, I shoe-horned that line in, but it was too good to waste!).

Thankfully, the good stuff—the really wild stuff—makes it all worthwhile and then some: Marcel Sarmiento's 'D is for Dogfight' is beautifully shot in slow motion throughout; Xavier Gens' 'X Is for XXL' is wonderfully gory, just as one might imagine from the man who gave us Frontier(s); Thomas Cappelen Malling's 'H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion' comes across like a live-action cartoon on crack; 'L is for Libido' is fap-tastically depraved; crude claymation short 'T is for Toilet' may lack the finesse of a Nick Park film, but is tons gorier; and words cannot do justice to the insanity on display in Yoshihiro Nishimura's 'Z is for Zetsumetsu'.

Even if, like me, you only really enjoy (or even understand) a handful of these twisted works of art, The ABCs of Death is a commendable effort and easily worth a couple of hours of any degenerate's time; while I can't see myself watching the whole thing again in a hurry, there are certain chapters that I'm sure I'll revisit many times over in the future.

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

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.

When you watch "The ABCs of Death", you're really watching 26 f**ked up short stories that either leave you thinking it was good, or a total piece of crap. About half of these stories are good and the other half suck. The good thing about this is that even if while you're watching one and you think it's horrible, it only lasts about 4 minutes, then a whole new tale begins. There's a lot of graphic scenes in this gritty movie that you might not want to watch if you have a lite stomach. However, for all the gore loving horror freaks out there, I would definitely say its worth a see. I'm not sure of I'd ever watch the full thing again, but there are certainly a couple scenes that I would show my friends/family, and re-watch a couple times. Overall I give this movie a 5/10. Better than what I thought I would give it before I turned it on.