The horror film genre is full of varying levels of quality from amateur films to Blockbuster genre films. As we all know, the best films come from the indie filmmakers not held back by studio demands. 2012’s The ABCs of Death found 26 directors tackling the subject of death from any angle, so long as it corresponded to the letter of the alphabet in which they were assigned. And much like anthology films and similar film collections, many vignettes/segments are hit or miss.
Thus is the nature of anthology films, and with this year’s sequel, The ABCs of Death 2 is a mixed-bag full of both interesting and exciting death shorts and uninspiring, bland shorts.
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The ABCs of Death 2
Directors: Various
Rating: R
Release Date: October 31, 2014
As addressed in the introduction, The ABCs of Death 2 features 26 shorts directed by different directors from across the world assigned to a letter of the alphabet. To an artist, the prompt must be a godsend to exhibit creative freedom over the depiction of death. For horror films, an anthology film like The ABCs of Death 2 allows them to experience new talent demonstrating their abilities in a short enough span so that, in case the short isn’t to that viewer’s liking, it’ll end quickly before moving on to the next segment. In saying that, the balance isn’t too terribly off, but there are definitely shorts that stand out way more than others.
Some of the aforementioned highlights include B is for Badger (directed by Julian Barratt) about a documentary team encountering wild badgers; D is for Deloused (directed by Robert Morgan) is a stop-motion short about a bug that helps kill an executed man’s killers; F is for Falling (directed by Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado) about an Israeli woman finding her parachute caught in a tree and encountering a militant Palestinian boy; I is for Invincible (directed by Erik Matti) about grown siblings attempting to kill their immortal mother for her inheritance; M is for Masticate (directed by Robert Boocheck) about a man going on a vicious, zombie-like murder spree down a street due to bath salts; O is for Ochlocracy (mob rule) (directed by Hajime Ohata) about a woman who survived a zombie outbreak, but faces charges for her rampant murders in light of a cure for the disease; S is for Split (directed by Juan Martinez Moreno) about a man on a business trip talking to his wife on the phone just as somebody breaks into her house; T is for Torture Porn (directed by Jen and Sylvia Soska) about a woman objectified and treated terribly at a porn shoot revealing her vagina’s made up of tentacles; and Z is for Zygote (directed by Chris Nash) about a pregnant woman who has resisted giving birth to her child for 13 years.
The sum of The ABCs of Death 2 is made up of more hits than misses (the previously listed shorts are just my personal favorites), and makes for a good night at the theater or at home. Audiences will be able to discover new filmmakers they might not have known about before, and will get the chance to view different styles of the horror genre that would appease anybody along the spectrum. Hopefully, some of the shorts in the anthology can be expanded upon into feature-length films or as part of a series.