The ABCs of Death (2012)

Been meaning to check this one out for a while now, but it was never really top priority on my 'to watch list'. Wrong move on my part. "ABC's of Death" is one of the most enjoyable horror anthologies in years.

The gist here is that 26 film-makers from all over the world were given a letter of the alphabet and were to come up with a short narrative based on said letter. This makes for some exemplary 'short and sweet' segments jammed into an estimated 2-hour runtime.

Not every segment is a total winner, but there's certainly some interesting gems. A few of my favorites were "D is for Dogfight" (directed by Marcel Sarmiento, who co-wrote/directed the necro-zombie flick, "Deadgirl"), which was quite stylish in it's depiction of a man fist fighting a vicious dog in some kind of seedy underground fight ring setting. "O is for Orgasm" was one of the strangest of this assemblage - coming across as more of an 'arthouse' short than any of the others. "K is for Klutz" was a entertaining animated bit about a woman at a party who takes a shit and can't seem to get it to flush. It plays out kinda like a nasty Loony Toons short with a fucked up ending. My favorite entry was "L is for Libido" which plays out like a perverse game show type of thing in which two men are strapped to chairs and must jerk off to a variety of depraved shit put on display for them. If they fail to cum before their opponent, a spike mechanism impales them from ass to mouth. Masturbatory material includes stuff like an amputee getting off with her prosthetic leg and a man fucking a little boy. It's clever, well shot and definitely the most whacked out portion of "ABC's". Simon Rumley's "P is for Pressure" comes in at a close second, I'd say.

There were other segments I enjoyed. A few fell a little short. The one with the Nazi fox stripper was a little too ridiculous and the POV surfer bit - as well as Ti West's contribution, "M is for Miscarriage", were pretty dull and phoned in. Still, "ABC's of Death" is a cool concept for an anthology horror flick and never gets too long-winded or repetitive. It's really the perfect variety of themes consisting of tongue-n-cheek humor, over-the-top gore and some more straight-forward horror elements. Nothing about it really goes the conventional "spooky" route, however, as the title suggests, they all contain a prominent DEATH theme. So if you happen to share in my apathy for ghostly horror flicks, you'll dig "ABC's".