The ABCs of Death

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.

OK.....so like me you've probably watched the trailer (red band preferably) and that sparked your interest. I mean come on.....26 letters with a different director for each one?!?! I was initially nervous thinking it was gonna be off the wall gory and snuff film like but its the opposite. Majority of the short films are comedic and has no horror element to it. I am not disappointed that I watched it, just the fact that my expectations were set very high and after watching letter "A" I knew it wasn't gonna be as bad as I originally thought. Now keep in mind I've probably never heard of more than half of these directors so their style might not be for me but all in all it was corny. If there is a director that you really like their style then you may like it but without having any spoilers in my review the only letter I liked was "D" and maybe the end result of "X". I hope this review helps everybody that has that curious bug inside of them.

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.

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.

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.