The ABCs of Death
The ABCs of Death: Horror and Horror-Comedy anthology consisting of 26 short films from different directors, including some of the best and most notorious in the genre. The brief is simple; small budget, unlimited imagination, and be as anarchic, ambitious and outrageous as you can. Although there are a couple of stinkers, on-the-whole there are a lot of interesting, fun, and exciting segments in here; and hopefully it will be a gateway into world cinema, as the ‘foreign’ shorts are generally a cut above in terms of story and execution.
Score: 7.5/10
Apocalypse (Nacho Vigalondo): Some great use of black humour and physical effects. Great opener. 8/10
Bigfoot (Adrian Garcia Bogliano): Babysitting done right. Bogyman style Mexican ‘Snowman’. 8/10
Cycle (Ernesto Diaz Espinoza): Mini Triangle/Timecrimes style horror. Garden hoez! 7/10
Dogfight (Marcel Sarmiento): Best animal acting I’ve ever seen. Good mini plot & twist. 8/10
Exterminate (Angela Bettis): A campaign of terror from a spider. Too CGI reliant, but good fapping humour. 5/10
Fart (Noboru Iguchi): Some classic Japanese madness; schoolgirl lesbians overdosing on their teacher’s farts. 7/10
Gravity (Andrew Traucki): POV death by drowning. First stinker on the reel. 2/10
Hydro-Electric Diffusion (Thomas Malling): Steampunk Nazi Stripper Cat in XXX Loony Toons. 5/10
Ingrown (Jorge Michel Grau): Bathtubs, needles, scratching, vomit. Proper nasty & hard-hitting. 9/10
Jidai-geki (Yûdai Yamaguchi): Seppuku gone wrong. Very funny and awesome gore / FX. 8/10
Klutz (Anders Morgenthaler): Animation of a poop that just wont flush. One of the tamer segments. 6/10
Libido (Timo Tjahjanto): Very dark Mortal Kombat style masturbation competition. Unsettling and provocative. 9/10
Miscarriage (Ti West): Not scary, not well made, one cheap shock. Worst thing on the reel. 1/10
Nuptials (Banjong Pisanthanakun): Laugh out loud marriage proposal with a parrot. Charming and witty. 9/10
Orgasm (Bruno Forzani / Héléne Cattet): Feels more experimental and artistic-based than horror/gore. 4/10
Pressure (Simon Rumley): A prostitute doing a ‘crush film’ to pay the bills. Poignant and harrowing. 8/10
Quack (Adam Wingard / Simon Barrett): Too meta! A segment featuring the directors talking about their segment. Zzzzz 5/10
Removed (Srđan Spasojević): Surreal skit about a man being hacked to bits for his celluloid skin. Gross FX, potty mouth! 6/10
Speed (Jake West): Babes in the Desert trying to avoid death. Attitude, sass, style and striking visuals. 8/10
Toilet (Lee Hardcastle): A kid’s irrational fear of toilet training. Claymation madness! 9/10
Unearthed (Ben Wheatley): POV Vampire Vs Angry Mob. One of the slicker and better made efforts. 8/10
Vagitus (Kaare Andrews): Big action featuring a baby-eating robot and fertility. Slick CGI. 9/10
WTF! (Jon Schnepp): Another Meta segment, but genuinely WTF. Zombie clowns, pervy animation, hippy visuals & bloody babes. 6/10
XXL (Xavier Gens): Plight of a fat woman in today’s image-obsessed world. Repulsive SFX, hard-hitting story. 8/10
Youngbuck (Jason Eisener): a paedophile teaches a kid to hunt. 1980s montage style, mental, absurd, and great fun. 9/10
Zetsumetsu (Yoshihiro Nishimura): most outrageous segment; a topless Nazi babe with a big penis fights a girl firing veg from her lady garden. 9/11 depicted on tits; 3/11 (Fukushima disaster) on buttocks. Sex, violence, lesbians, and a fittingly OTT finale. 7/10
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