Plot
A 26-chapter anthology that showcases death in all its vicious wonder and brutal beauty.
Release Year: 2012
Rating: 5.2/10 (2,204 voted)
Director:Kaare Andrews
Storyline
The ABC's OF DEATH is an ambitious anthology film featuring segments directed by over two dozen of the world's leading talents in contemporary genre film. Inspired by children's educational ABC books, the motion picture is comprised of 26 individual chapters, each helmed by a different director assigned a letter of the alphabet. The directors were then given free reign in choosing a word to create a story involving death. Provocative, shocking, funny and ultimately confrontational; THE ABC's OF DEATH is the definitive snapshot of the diversity of modern horror. Drafthouse Films, Magnet Pictures and Timpson Films are proud to present this alphabetical arsenal of destruction orchestrated by what Fangoria calls "a stunning roll call of some of the most exciting names in horror across the world."
Trivia:
The child featured on the movie poster is the son of director Kaare Andrews. He is also featured in Andrews' segment in the film. See more »
Quotes: Dad:
Call the plumber now. It's an emergency!
See more »
User Review
A Huge Wasted Effort
Rating: 3/10
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.
0