The ABCs of Death (2012)

The ABCs of Death: Directed by Kaare Andrews, Angela Bettis, Hélène Cattet, Ernesto Díaz Espinoza, Jason Eisener, Bruno Forzani, Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Xavier Gens, Jorge Michel Grau, Lee Hardcastle, Noboru Iguchi, Thomas Cappelen Malling, Anders Morgenthaler, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Banjong Pisanthanakun, Simon Rumley, Marcel Sarmiento, Jon Schnepp, Srdjan Spasojevic, Timo Tjahjanto, Andrew Traucki, Nacho Vigalondo, Jake West, Ti West, Ben Wheatley, Adam Wingard, Yudai Yamaguchi. With Eva Llorach, Miquel Insua, Alejandra Urdiaín, Harold Torres. A 26-chapter anthology that showcases death in all its vicious wonder and brutal beauty.

“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. u0026quot;The ABCs of Deathu0026quot; just proves how incredibly hard it is to make a good short film, and Iu0026#39;m sad to say the bad far outweighs the good.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe first decent short does not come all the way until the letter L, which is almost halfway through the alphabet. Itu0026#39;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, Westu0026#39;s segment feels incredibly lazy and shot in five minutes while Vigalondou0026#39;s segment rehashes the same apocalypse premise weu0026#39;ve seen many times before. T is a notable segment because it was for a competition, and itu0026#39;s one of the best ones here. X is the most violent (and is also very good), which isnu0026#39;t surprising coming from French filmmaker Xavier Gens (u0026quot;Frontier(s)u0026quot;).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eShorts F, J, and Z are all Japanese, which you think might be a good thing, but they are huge stinkers in the bunch, especially u0026quot;F is for Fart.u0026quot; Itu0026#39;s pretty much self-explanatory. Another one that I hated is W, appropriately titled u0026quot;WTF!u0026quot; O is the most visually breathtaking with uses of slow-mo and sound effects, but itu0026#39;s pretty much style over substance. But hey, compared to most of the shorts you see, itu0026#39;s a welcome change. G seems to be the most pointless one where all you see is a guy surfing. Seriously, Iu0026#39;m not joking. Thatu0026#39;s all there is.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI 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, u0026quot;The ABCs of Death,u0026quot; while a neat idea, is mostly just a collection of forgettable to incredibly bad shorts sprinkled with very few good ones.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe 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.”