Quickie Review: "The ABCs of Death"

As you may recall, I wrote about "The ABCs of Death" a while back in my last INDIE FILMS YOU SHOULD BE STOKED FOR article. When I first heard of the project, I was quite excited for it. The poster was extremely cool, and the concept was something that hasn't really been done before (at least not on such a large scale). Twenty-six Horror directors signed on, got a letter of the alphabet, and had to come up with a short based off the letter. (For example: A is for Apocalypse.)

Well it came out on Video on Demand this past week, and I couldn't help myself. I just had to give this a look! Plus, I'd rather spend ten bucks now instead of twenty-five later when it came out on Blu-ray, especially if it sucked. Last night, I took the plunge, paid my "pre-theatrical rental" fee, and sat through two hours of total "what the f*ck" cinema.

So how was it you may be wondering? Well... pretty disappointing actually. I'd say that out of the twenty-six shorts, I only really liked about five or six of them. I'm not saying the rest were all horrible, but some were just too weird (all of the Asian ones) or too artsy ("O is for Orgasm") for their own good. Here are some of the better shorts:

C is for CYCLE
This one was kind of cool; I was honestly expecting this one to be C for Clone. Multiple realities merge when a guy witnesses his own murder.... by himself. Is he having a glimpse of the future? Is he about to be replaced by an evil doppelganger or twisted twin brother? It is never really revealed, but hey I'm cool with that because this was a cool idea.

D is for Dogfight
This one was pretty weird. A guy prepares for an underground dogfight against an actual dog. As he and the hound trade blows and bites, they eventually stop and turn on their abusive masters. This was gritty and cool. Still wondering if the guy that was fighting the dog, was actually a dog the entire time?

H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion
This one was INSANE and I loved it! It's World War II and a fighter pilot walks into a bar to catch a stripshow. The twist? The pilot is an anthropomorphic dog, and the stripper is a fox... literally! It's a twisted cartoon brought to life, with the brave pilot being captured and nearly tortured to death by the Nazi fox-woman in disguise. Is is weird for me to find a weird human/fox hybrid sexy? Hahaha.

This ain't Disney's "Fox and the Hound!"

Q is for Quack
Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett think outside the box on this one. Filmed as a "behind-the-scenes" video of their creation of their "Q short," the two brainstorm but can't come up with anything. Eventually they decide to snuff a duck on camera with some funny results.

T is for Toilet
After sitting through a lot of toilet and sh*t-themed shorts (seriously, a lot of these directors have a toilet/bodily fluids fetish), here was one that I could get behind. Lee Hardcastle, the genius behind "The Thing" and "The Raid" with claymation cats,  tells us the story of a child that's afraid to use the toilet. This short was picked in a contest hosted by Drafthouse Films; you can check it out for yourself below.


V is for Vagitus
This one really took the ball and ran with it. Set in a dystopian future where childbirth is controlled by the people in power, we watch as a police officer and her GIANT ROBOTIC PARTNER WITH A FORE-ARM MOUNTED MINI-GUN break into a warehouse and start gunning people down. The crime? Having a child without government consent. There's a lot more to this short film that I won't spoil, but after all the other toilet humor and weirdness, this one was a breath of fresh air.

So what about the rest? Well some are mediocre, some are OK, and many are just plain... f*cked.... up. Noboru Iguchi's "F is for Fart" is insanely bizarre and had me staring slack-jawed at the screen. Timo Tjahjanto's "L is for Libido" is perhaps the most f*cked up short in the entire anthology. A guy is stuck in a life-or-death game where he has to masturbate and reach climax before his competitor. The thing is, they have to whack-off to some truly disturbing stuff, like masturbating amputees and child rape. It's really disturbing and shocking and kind of left a bad taste in my mouth.

"X is for XXL" features an overweight woman being brutally picked on by everyone that sees her. When she arrives home, she stuffs her face with food, then goes into the bathroom with a knife and begins hacking off her fatty flesh. Then there's "W is for WTF!" which totally lives up to its name, and "Z is for Zetsumetsu" which is full of mutants, penises, and capped off with a parody of "Dr. Strangelove."

Now I'm all for filmmakers taking a chance on making something different, and like I said earlier, the concept is really cool, but in the end "The ABCs of Death" just didn't do it for me. The good shorts are too few, and the majority of them are obsessed with bodily-fluids other than blood. It's a movie that'll have you laughing one minute, staring in shock another, and will ultimately have you asking "What the f*ck is wrong with Asians?!"

Do I recommend "The ABCs of Death?" No, not really, but there are a few diamonds in the rough so it isn't a total waste of two hours. In the end, it was all one gloriously failed experiment. There is definite room for improvement in the future though, and I am totally ready to embrace a followup film. But next time guys and gals, could you please toss more blood and less poop at the screen?