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.
For FULL reviews of recent releases, check out our website.
