The ABCs of Death (2012)

The ABCs of Death is a horror anthology film consisting of 26 stories of, you guessed it, death, each corresponding with a letter of the alphabet. If you’ve seen any horror anthologies before, you know that each individual chapter can vary wildly in quality, and nowhere is this better exemplified than in The ABCs of Death. Each segment was written and directed by completely different people, and based on the absurdity of some of them, they all seem to have been given little to no guidelines. Some are legitimately scary, some are just plain awful, and some are downright strange. The segment “Q is for Quack” shows the two real life filmmakers Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett lamenting over the fact that they were stuck with the letter Q, and they also mention that they had been given a budget of $5,000. If we assume that they were telling the truth, and that all of the directors were given the same budget, then some of the chapters are very impressive, while others have a lot of explaining to do as to where that money went. Here’s a breakdown of each chapter.

• “A is for Apocalypse”- This one is pretty awful, but the special effects are pretty decent. It has almost nothing to do with “Apocalypse”, however, and it was most certainly not the cause of death of any of the characters.
• “B is for Bigfoot”- This one’s not bad, but it also isn’t about Bigfoot. The name comes from a babysitter telling a kid a story about the Abominable Snowman (obviously where “Bigfoot” comes from) to scare her, but the way it’s told, it’s set up to be “Boogeyman.” Apparently, the original title was “Y is For Yeti”, which not only opens up a whole can of worms about the studio giving directors incorrect letters, but it makes just as much sense, as the monster bares no resemblance to a Yeti or Bigfoot, if you can even call it a monster.
• “C is For Cycle”- A little more interesting than the previous entries, a man goes back in time on accident, kills his past self, and takes his place, then the cycle continues. What little effects there are are fine.
• “D is for Dogfight”- Pretty self explanatory, but this one looks a little too good, like, I’m kinda worried they actually injured a dog for this one.
• “E is for Exterminate”- This one is awful all around and was surely some sort of money laundering scheme, so I won’t waste my time on it.
• “F is for Fart”- This one you have to watch. It’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen, and involves a Japanese school girl who is obsessed with smelling her teachers farts. When she eventually does, she’s teleported into some weird fart dimension. It’s very strange, but not even the strangest chapter.
• “G is for Gravity”- This one is pretty much just as terrible as exterminate and the name is about as dumb is “B is for Bigfoot.”
• “H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion”- An english piolet/bulldog is seduced by a stripper fox who turns out to be a Nazi and attempts to electrocute him in water. This one is very strange, and I suggest you see it, but be warned, there are fox boobs, so watch at your own risk.
• “I is for Ingrown”- Some dude has a girl tied up in his bathtub, injects her with something, and then she dies. Honestly pretty boring.
• “J is for Jidai-geki (Saurai Movie)”- A samurai is tasked with beheading another if they fail to complete Seppuku, but he finds it difficult because the Samurai keeps making ridiculous faces at him. This one is seriously pretty funny and well worth the watch.
• “K is for Klutz”- This is our first animated segment and it totally sucks. It’s really boring, it goes on for way too long, and the style is incredibly dull.
• “L is for Libido”- This one is gross. Like, really, really gross. So gross that I do not want to talk about it. If you still wanna watch it, out of morbid curiosity, go ahead, but I did warn you.
• “M is for Miscarriage.”-This one is pretty short and pretty boring, but it does end with a slow zoom on what I guess is supposed to be a dead fetus in a toilet so that’s. . . something, at least?
• “N is for Nuptials”- After getting a pet bird, a man proposes to his wife. However, things go awry when the bird begins repeating things he said while cheating on her, and when I say things go awry, I mean she straight up murders him with a knife.
• “O is for Orgasm”- This one is just some weird dumb art film of two people having sex until the man strangles the woman with a belt. That’s all.
• “P is for Pressure”- This one is also dumb, and boring, and far two long, but basically, a prostitute crushes a kitten to death with her foot, and that’s the whole thing.
• “Q is for Quack”- I kind of already talked about this one in the intro, but basically the directors want to make their chapter stand out by really killing something onscreen, and they settle on a duck, since they quack and, ya know, they kinda needed to fit a “Q” in there somehow. Sadly, since they don’t really know how to use guns, they both accidentally shoot and kill each other. Very meta, very cool, I liked it.
• “R is for Removed”- This one is pretty weird but pretty good. It’s about this dude who has, like, film under his skin and people cut his skin off to get it out, I think? It’s dialogue free and sometimes it's kinda hard to tell what’s happening. He eventually gets fed up with this, breaks free, and kills some people using a bullet made of skin. The effects in this one are quite good and it’s shot super well, but it does get very gross at times.
• “S is for Speed”- A girl’s overdose on heroin is represented by her being chased down by a monster. This one is odd, but well done, especially for the budget. The scenes of her hallucinating the monster chase are reminiscent of a cheap Mad Max.
• “T is for Toilet”- The only other fully animated segment was done by one of my favorite animators, Lee Hardcastle. This claymation chapter tells the story of a young boy who is afraid using the toilet and his gruesome death. Obviously very well done because Hardcastle is awesome.
• “U is for Unearthed”- This one is shot from the first person POV of a vampire who rises from their grave before being beheaded by a mob. I dig this one a lot, it’s done super well done and it’s really cool.
• “V is for Vagitus (The Cry of a Newborn Baby)”- In dystopian Vancouver (another “V”!), a cop and her robot partner encounter a group of “mentals”, people with psychic powers, leading the robot to murder all of them, including their infant child, or so he thought. It turns out, the baby was some kind of super mental, referred to as the “prophet”, and lives on, even after being decapitated. This one is super bitchin’, and is really well done for the small budget. It could easily work as a feature film, and it apparently started out that way. It’s a shame we’ll probably never see that.
• “W is for WTF”- Another meta one, the director and other filmmakers struggle to come up with an idea for their segment as their city is overrun by a giant Walrus, zombie clowns, chemtrails, and all kinds of weird biz. This one is just a hodgepodge of nonsense, as the title suggests, and it’s one of my favorites.
• “X is for XXL”- An obese woman who is constantly tormented about her weight cuts off all of her own skin and dies. This one has very impressive effects, and it 's more than a little gross. If you’re squeamish, I’d avoid it.
• “Y is for Youngbuck”- In this chapter, a young boy gets back at a sexually abusive janitor by decapitating him with a severed deer head. This one is pretty cool and well done, but it isn’t without some VERY gross imagery. Proceed with caution.
• “Z is for Zetsumetsu (Extinction)”- This chapter is the most bizarre thing I have ever seen. It is beyond description, but I’ll try my best. It seems to be a fictional add for sushi, but is intercut with imagery of a topless Nazi woman with a giant penis, naked men preparing sushi at gunpoint from another nazi, a man in a wheelchair named “Dr. Strangeluv” (not subtle), a representation of 9/11 on breasts, naked men wearing rocket hats labeled “Little boy” and a monologue about Japan being radioactive. It’s seriously so, so weird, and becomes actually pornographic towards the end, but I do recommend it just because it is so unbelievably bizarre.

Sorry this review ran so long, there was just a lot to talk about. In the end, I’m not really sure if I could recommend The ABCs of Death as a whole, but it was certainly an experience. A weird, weird experience.

BEST QUOTE

From “W is for WTF!” directed by Jon Schnepp

JON SCHNEPP: “Here’s a thing, walrus, it’s like a Godzilla walrus. It’s like a city, people are being destroyed, you pan over, it’s a walrus.”

MAN: “Okay.”

JON SCHNEPP: “W.”

MAN: “Okay, do you have a city?”

JON SCHNEPP: “No.”

MAN: “Do you have a guy in a walrus outfit?”

JON SCHNEPP: “No.”

MAN: “Can you do that by this weekend?”

JON SCHNEPPr: “No.”

MAN: “Well what the fuck are you talkin’ about, then!?”