26 Directors. 26 ways to die. What comes next is 123 minutes of WTF which left me feeling like I had done a bucket load of drugs.
It started of promising with the intelligent "A is for Apocalypse" which starts out with a wife mercilessly trying to kill her bed-ridden husband. Has she snapped? Finally had enough? Not at all - it has a bittersweet ending that had me thinking this was going to be a worthy ride.
Then I got lost - B & C were either predictable (B) or just nonsensical (C). "D is for Dogfight" brought me back in - very well short with great lighting and no dialogue telling the story whatsoever. "E" features a spider on a revenge mission against the poor sap who tried to squish him. Then it gets to the first WTF moment - F. I don't really know what to say about F. But it featured nothing that I would have considered "horror" unless films about lesbians with fart fetishes terrify you. When we come to G - no clue as to what happened here, I guess it was a movie about someone drowning? I don't know.. Our second WTF moment comes in H - let's just say it features a man-dog being seduced by a Nazi woman cat and then a whole lot of electricity. The feature for the letter I was uninspired. By this point i'm starting to get a bit bored - but we're only a few shorts in - there still must be plenty more to come - it's got to get better... hasn't it?
Third WTF moment arrives in J (another Japanese segment) .. I don't even know where to begin. K see's the movie step into animated territory with the charming cartoon of a turd that just won't flush.. I won't spoil what happens but for the first time, I actually laughed. L is when things started to get serious. A twisted tale that repulsed me by the end. I'm reluctant to say it's one of the better shorts - but it did get a strong reaction from me - so I guess that's a good thing? M is probably the weakest short across the whole collection, which is disappointing as this is Ti West's feature - and whilst the subject matter is still somewhat taboo today - it was a cheap shot - and i'm curious as to know Ti spent the $5000 dollar budget on. N was another amusing entry - and had me laughing by the blood spattered end.
O was another one of those WTF moments... Then we got to P and I have to say this short upset me - as an animal lover, I found a particular scene of this short hard to watch. Not a fan. Q took us on a different direction - and was a short in the perspective of the directors of the short, p****ed they have the letter Q and decide to shoot a live duck as part of their segment.. another amusing effort but by this point in the movie... I have admitted defeat and realised that the opportunity to show case 26 of the best and well known horror/sci-fi directors has been completely wasted. I've seen nothing revolutionary or anything different to what we've seen in countless horror movies before.
Another WTF moment comes in "R" - i'm still not sure I really got what was going on, but it looked like there was a man who had "film cells" hidden beneath his hideously scarred flesh. I could be wrong, but by this point - I didn't really care. "S" features junkies and didn't come across as a segment that would really feature in a horror anthology. Nothing particularly horrific about it. "T" I had already seen before - Lee Hardcastle's excellent twisted claymation tale about a man-eating toilet. This is actually my favourite short across the whole segment just for it's creativity and fantastic claymation blood n guts - but it's the ending that really wins the points from me. "U" was another uninspired - been there/done that short filmed in a POV perspective. "V" was where it got interesting again. But this was again purely for the fact it took on a complete different style - more sci-fi than horror but very clever. W is another WTF moment which I suppose is appropriate considering the segment is actually called "W is WTF" - clearly the directors know what they were doing when it came to producing a segment that would incite the viewer to exclaim loudly "WTF?!" - but that's really all it was - poorly animated, poor special effects and just as much absurdity as you could possibly squeeze into 6/7 minutes. Not enjoyable at all. "X" was disturbing and probably features the most blood- shed out of all the shorts combined. A sad and graphic story about a fat girl who just wants to be thin and takes it to the extreme. "Y" was just... I don't even.. paedophiles, deer-hunting and licking up the sweat of young kids off of a gym bench... yeah, says it all really. Not one I enjoyed watching at all. And finally, another WTF moment courtesy of Japan when we come to "Z"... all you need to know - giant penis with a blade, girl shooting vegetables out of her vagina - close up of tits and a man ejaculating rice.
So when the credits rolled... I really didn't know what to say. My brain had been assaulted by 2 hours of perverse sexual violence, graphic gore and cliché story telling. If that's you're thing - well I guess there's a lot you can enjoy - lots of sex, drugs, violence and ridiculous bodily functions. If however, you like your horror with a little more intelligence - then I would steer clear of "The ABCs of Death".
It started of promising with the intelligent "A is for Apocalypse" which starts out with a wife mercilessly trying to kill her bed-ridden husband. Has she snapped? Finally had enough? Not at all - it has a bittersweet ending that had me thinking this was going to be a worthy ride.
Then I got lost - B & C were either predictable (B) or just nonsensical (C). "D is for Dogfight" brought me back in - very well short with great lighting and no dialogue telling the story whatsoever. "E" features a spider on a revenge mission against the poor sap who tried to squish him. Then it gets to the first WTF moment - F. I don't really know what to say about F. But it featured nothing that I would have considered "horror" unless films about lesbians with fart fetishes terrify you. When we come to G - no clue as to what happened here, I guess it was a movie about someone drowning? I don't know.. Our second WTF moment comes in H - let's just say it features a man-dog being seduced by a Nazi woman cat and then a whole lot of electricity. The feature for the letter I was uninspired. By this point i'm starting to get a bit bored - but we're only a few shorts in - there still must be plenty more to come - it's got to get better... hasn't it?
Third WTF moment arrives in J (another Japanese segment) .. I don't even know where to begin. K see's the movie step into animated territory with the charming cartoon of a turd that just won't flush.. I won't spoil what happens but for the first time, I actually laughed. L is when things started to get serious. A twisted tale that repulsed me by the end. I'm reluctant to say it's one of the better shorts - but it did get a strong reaction from me - so I guess that's a good thing? M is probably the weakest short across the whole collection, which is disappointing as this is Ti West's feature - and whilst the subject matter is still somewhat taboo today - it was a cheap shot - and i'm curious as to know Ti spent the $5000 dollar budget on. N was another amusing entry - and had me laughing by the blood spattered end.
O was another one of those WTF moments... Then we got to P and I have to say this short upset me - as an animal lover, I found a particular scene of this short hard to watch. Not a fan. Q took us on a different direction - and was a short in the perspective of the directors of the short, p****ed they have the letter Q and decide to shoot a live duck as part of their segment.. another amusing effort but by this point in the movie... I have admitted defeat and realised that the opportunity to show case 26 of the best and well known horror/sci-fi directors has been completely wasted. I've seen nothing revolutionary or anything different to what we've seen in countless horror movies before.
Another WTF moment comes in "R" - i'm still not sure I really got what was going on, but it looked like there was a man who had "film cells" hidden beneath his hideously scarred flesh. I could be wrong, but by this point - I didn't really care. "S" features junkies and didn't come across as a segment that would really feature in a horror anthology. Nothing particularly horrific about it. "T" I had already seen before - Lee Hardcastle's excellent twisted claymation tale about a man-eating toilet. This is actually my favourite short across the whole segment just for it's creativity and fantastic claymation blood n guts - but it's the ending that really wins the points from me. "U" was another uninspired - been there/done that short filmed in a POV perspective. "V" was where it got interesting again. But this was again purely for the fact it took on a complete different style - more sci-fi than horror but very clever. W is another WTF moment which I suppose is appropriate considering the segment is actually called "W is WTF" - clearly the directors know what they were doing when it came to producing a segment that would incite the viewer to exclaim loudly "WTF?!" - but that's really all it was - poorly animated, poor special effects and just as much absurdity as you could possibly squeeze into 6/7 minutes. Not enjoyable at all. "X" was disturbing and probably features the most blood- shed out of all the shorts combined. A sad and graphic story about a fat girl who just wants to be thin and takes it to the extreme. "Y" was just... I don't even.. paedophiles, deer-hunting and licking up the sweat of young kids off of a gym bench... yeah, says it all really. Not one I enjoyed watching at all. And finally, another WTF moment courtesy of Japan when we come to "Z"... all you need to know - giant penis with a blade, girl shooting vegetables out of her vagina - close up of tits and a man ejaculating rice.
So when the credits rolled... I really didn't know what to say. My brain had been assaulted by 2 hours of perverse sexual violence, graphic gore and cliché story telling. If that's you're thing - well I guess there's a lot you can enjoy - lots of sex, drugs, violence and ridiculous bodily functions. If however, you like your horror with a little more intelligence - then I would steer clear of "The ABCs of Death".