The ABCs of Death

Title: The ABCs of Death

Directors: Xavier Gens, Angela Bettis, Jake West, Noboru Iguchi, Andrew Traucki, Anders Morgenthaler, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Banjong Pisanthanakun, Marcel Sarmiento, Ti West, Adam Wingard, Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Yudai Yamaguchi, Nacho Vigalondo, Ernesto Diaz Espinoza, Helene Cattet, Bruno Forzani, Simon Rumley, Ben Wheatley, Kaare Andrews,  Jason Eisener, Thomas Cappenlen Malling, Jon Schnepp, Timo Tjahjanto, Jorge Michel Grau, Srdan Spasojevic, Lee Hardcastle

Released: 2012

Plot: 26 directors each take a letter of the alphabet and given complete creative freedom create a short film about death

Review: Anthology films are always something of a double edged sword as not only is the time for exploring an idea more limited but on the flipside if an idea is not working for the viewer it’s not a long wait till you get another. Of course when it comes to this film there is something to admire about the ambition of bringing together twenty six directors of widely different styles and seeing what the idea of death inspired…..the end result though is decidedly mixed. 

Ranging from fun and interesting to plain tedious while others pure WTF? the film with 26 shorts is certainly a slog to get through especially when a good portion of the films don’t work be it due to the limitations of the letter assigned to them or their vision / talent.

Removing any pre-conception perceptions of the director, each short waits till its conclusion to reveal the title and who directed it. Some of the directors even use the title as the punchline for their shorts while for the Japanese directors their native tongue provides a handy work around such as J is for Jidai-geki  or Z is for Zetsumetsu

So let’s start with the good things about this collection which sadly is shortest list to compile but there are shorts here which really shine like Adam Wingard taking the meta approach with Q is for Quack as his struggles to deal with the letter proves to be a refreshing comedic experience amongst the gore and shock while Ben Wheatly brings a first person perspective to his vampire short which is a breezy but memorable affair. Banjong Pisanthanakun’s N is for Nuptials shows a more playful side to the directors work and arguably one of the few shorts which could have been released on its own. Jason Eisener meanwhile brings his Troma-esq splatter to Y is For Youngbuck set solely to the music of Australian synthwave group Power Glove. The fact that some of these directors are still able to create memorable and effective shorts while heaping on the splatter and shock is really only more of a credit to their abilities especially when splatter is so frequently seen as a crutch for horror directors unable to create suspense.

However for the brief moments your impressed by one of the shorts there is a long list of disappointing and misfire shorts such as Ti West who I expected to be one of the better shorts only for his film to feel much like Andrew Traucki’s first person shot G is for Gravity like it was thrown together on a deadline. Lee Hardcastle might have won the competition to have his short featured as the T entry but the claymation splatter did little for me personally and coming so late in the anthology to be faced with more throwaway splatter did little to warm it to me. 

When it comes to the WTF? Entries I’m not sure I should be suprised that japanese directors really ran with the creative freedom given to them to create some truly bizarre entries here with Tokyo Gore Police director Yoshihiro Nishimura giving his take on Dr. Strangelove in a tale of sushi, nudity and battling penises. While Yudai Yamaguchi has a samurai executioner battling a series of strange hallucinations while I really want to know what inspired the fart obsessed offering from Noboru Iguchi which considering that he’s the same director responsible for the likes of Robogeisha and The Machine Girl it’s an entry surprisingly lacking in his trademark splatter. Timo Tjahjanto though really goes for the most shocking entry with L is for Libido in which two unwilling participants try and avoid a spike through the head by masturbating to ever more shocking and grotesque scenes happening in front of them which while strangely fascinating in places managed to also remind me that I still have the ability to be shocked by things and this of course is excusing the shot of the girl masterbating with her own foot.

The one short you will no doubt remember coming away from this film is Thomas Cappelen Malling’s H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion which sees an alternative vision of WW2 involving humanoid animals and burlesque shot in a parody style of the patriotic films of the etra only with a furry twist. 

A great concept but one that has a heavily flawed execution as the creative freedom often leads to grotesque and tiresome sequences as often as it produces something memorable. As such it’s worth a curiosity watch should you stumble across it on a streaming service but certainly not worth adding to your collection or wasting your rental money as you’re more than likely just going to skip to the few scattered highlights contained within this mismash of styles and ideas.