Angela Bettis ... (segment "E is for Exterminate")
Hélène Cattet ... (segment "O is for Orgasm")
Ernesto Díaz Espinoza ... (segment "C is for Cycle")
Jason Eisener ... (segment "Y Is for Youngbuck")
Bruno Forzani ... (segment "O is for Orgasm")
Adrián García Bogliano ... (segment "B Is for Bigfoot")
Xavier Gens ... (segment "X Is for XXL")
Jorge Michel Grau ... (segment "I is for Ingrown")
Lee Hardcastle ... (segment "T Is for Toilet")
Noboru Iguchi ... (segment "F is for Fart")
Thomas Cappelen Malling ... (segment "H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion")
Anders Morgenthaler ... (segment "K is for Klutz")
Yoshihiro Nishimura ... (segment "Z is for Zetsumetsu")
Banjong Pisanthanakun ... (segment "N is for Nuptials")
Simon Rumley ... (segment "P Is for Pressure")
Marcel Sarmiento ... (segment "D Is for Dogfight")
Jon Schnepp ... (segment "W is for WTF?")
Srdjan Spasojevic ... (segment "R Is for Removed")
Timo Tjahjanto ... (segment "L is for Libido")
Andrew Traucki ... (segment "G is for Gravity")
Nacho Vigalondo ... (segment "A Is for Apocalypse")
Jake West ... (segment "S is for Speed")
Ti West ... (segment "M Is for Miscarriage")
Ben Wheatley ... (segment "U Is for Unearthed")
Adam Wingard ... (segment "Q Is for Quack")
Yudai Yamaguchi ... (segment "J is for Jidai-geki")
Writers:
Ant Timpson ... (based on a nightmare by)Nacho Vigalondo ... (written by) (segment "A is for Apocalypse")
Adrián García Bogliano ... (written by) (segment "B is for Bigfoot")
Ernesto Díaz Espinoza ... (written by) (segment "C is for Cycle")
Marcel Sarmiento ... (written by) (segment "D is for Dogfight")
Simon Rumley ... (written by) (segment "P is for Pressure")
Jon Schnepp ... (segment) (segment "W is for WTF?")
Dimitrije Vojnov ... (written by) (segment "R is for Removed")
Yudai Yamaguchi ... (segment) (segment "J is for Jidai-geki")
Noboru Iguchi ... (segment) (segment "F is for Fart")
Simon Barrett ... (written by) (segment "Q is for Quack")
Ti West ... (written by) (segment "M is for Miscarriage")
Kaare Andrews ... (written by) (segment "V is for Vagitus")
Bruno Forzani ... (written by) (segment "O is for Orgasm")
Hélène Cattet ... (written by) (segment "O is for Orgasm")
Yoshihiro Nishimura ... (segment) (segment "Z is for Zetsumetsu")
Keith Calder ... (story by) (segment "Q is for Quack")
Srdjan Spasojevic ... (written by) (segment "R is for Removed")
Lee Hardcastle ... (segment) (segment "T Is for Toilet")
Martha Poly Vil ... (original idea) (segment "I is for Ingrown") (as Martha Poly R. Mendivil)
NOTE: Credits unceremoniously stolen as-is from IMDb. This is enough...the stars don't really matter.
As I slogged through the shitshow that was The ABCs of Death, I started to think of clever ways to present my review. Maybe I could describe the movie using each of the letters of the alphabet? Or maybe I could review each one of them individually, so that people would know which ones were worth watching and which ones should be skipped? I eventually decided not to do the first example, because other reviewers did similar things and far greater than I could, while the second idea was nixed because all my notes consisted of were synonyms for “abysmal”.
The ABCs of Death collects 26 random, amateur filmmakers who were selected through sweepstakes and magazine contests, and gives them a handful of minutes to...wait, what did you say? These are actually established artists? And they were specifically chosen because of their contributions to the horror genre? Oh, nevermind then...that somehow makes everything even shittier.
But you would be forgiven if you did think this was a collection of wannabes vying for attention, because the quality only varies from “truly atrocious” to “okay”. That's right: there is nothing worth seeing in this entire mess; that none of the works in this anthology have come to define any of the directors involved (with many instead functioning as a hindrance) should tell you something.
At any rate, 26 horror directors are each assigned a letter of the alphabet, and were apparently given free rein to assign a word to said letter, and make a short vignette that ties that word into death. On paper it sounds like an intriguing premise, but it becomes very obvious very quickly that piece of paper should have been thrown out immediately, because the execution leaves the viewer wanting more—like a movie that's actually watchable.
In defense of the filmmakers, it's no doubt very hard to tell a meaningful story within a very short time frame (I don't have specific statistics on longest or shortest segments, but 129 minutes divided by 26 segments equals 4.96—essentially five minutes per letter), but I'm positively stunned at just how bad a vast majority of these “attempts” are, with several of them even feeling overlong--come to think of it, using amateurs out to prove themselves would have actually yielded a much more interesting product.
So which ones did I enjoy the most? “Enjoy” is a very strong term, but my first choice would probably be Helene Cattat's “O for Orgasm”, mainly because it stood out as being the most visually resplendent of an otherwise stale bunch. It's probably the least horror-themed out of all of them, and I can't say I understood much of what was going on, but it was one of the few that didn't leave me wanting to kick a hole through my television immediately after it was over.
The best one story-wise was far and away “D for Dogfight”. Admittedly, I completely missed the point the first time, but this tale of a boxer forced to fight his own dog packs the biggest emotional wallop, and is the most fully-formed out of all of them, somehow managing to stick to a standard three-act story structure within such a confined amount of time.
Other notables are “L is for Libido”, which takes a central theme that wouldn't feel out of place in A Serbian Film, but does so in a much more subtle way, although the ending kind of cheapens the rest; “T is for Toilet” is the claymation story of a child afraid of the titular bathroom fixture—the story is okay, and the animation seems rushed, but it's a nice change of pace from live-action; and “X is for XXL” also goes for the emotions, telling the story of a fat woman who's body shamed and decides to go for...immediate results.
On the flipside we have Ti West's “M for Miscarriage”, in which West forgets to include a story or point, the same exact problem he had with his agonizingly boring The House of the Devil. Adam Wingard's “Q for Quack” goes for laughs (by attempting to mock the fact they are stuck with the letter “Q”), but there are none to be found. It's amazing to me that these two are constantly cited as being positive forces on the current horror landscape, considering they have done nothing even remotely worthy of such accolades.
The absolute worst is Noboro Iguchi's “F is for Fart”, in which a woman wants to die by being farted on. Now, I'm a typical man who finds farts to be hilarious, but this half-baked idea didn't even make me smile once; it's a childish concept that seems to rely solely on its idea to carry it across the finish line, unaware that, by those standards, it was stillborn to begin with. It's one of several others stories that deal with poop and toilets, which would normally be rather odd, but fits right in with the theme of the overall movie.
ABCs of Death is probably one of the worst horror movies I've ever seen, an ill-advised mess of epic proportions that is a stunning example of why anthology films are given such a bad rap. Supposedly, it was created by Ant Timpson (who also produced), based off a nightmare he had. It's hard to imagine his inspirational nightmare being any worse than the cruel and unusual punishment viewers are subjected to over the course of its agonizing two-plus hour duration.
RATING: 1.5/10
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