ABCs of Death (2012)

ABCs of Death  (2012)

Some very good and some very bad!

The concept of the capable of the worst and the best can definitely be found here.

There’s something for everyone. As long as you like horror, of course!

This is indeed for a well-informed audience. It’s still horror.

If you want to see a romantic comedy or a historical drama, don’t bother!

That said, it’s also aesthetically pleasing!

In fact, there’s a bit of everything, some of it really nonsense, as well as some of it excellent and even touching. A lot of these stories make you think, even if it’s hard to watch them.

Dirty sex, gore, the 26 stories represent a letter, a word and a connection with death. There’s a story about farting, masturbation and Japanese fascists.

There are dog fights, a cartoon with poo, modelling clay for adults with lots of blood. There’s originality, sensuality, stories without dialogue. It moves from one country to another, one director to another, one culture to another.

But in the end, it’s far from a masterpiece.

Indeed, even if the advantage is that: if you don’t like one story, as they are short, you quickly move on to the next. But some of them are really worth it.

It’s a film to see for fans of the genre, but not to see again, at least not in its entirety, and it’s even less a film to have in your collection.

The ABCs of Death 2 (2014)

Complementary to the first!

This comment is about another version.

Not necessarily worse, not necessarily better, not necessarily different, not necessarily similar.

Anyway, there are so many stories, director… that comparisons are difficult, if not impossible.

Disgusting, violent, disturbing, gory, murderous, psychopathic, sexually twisted…. It’s all here!

The stories are thought-provoking, even if they’re not necessarily pleasant to watch.

Few of them are really worth watching in the end.

It’s a film to see, but not to re-watch in its entirety. So it’s not a film to have at home in your collection.

You could make a single perfect sketch film out of it by taking the best of the first and the best of the second. I think there are about ten or twelve films between good and excellent out of the 52 shorts. The rest are either disappointing, because of a good intro, but a bad ending, a poorly-exploited idea, or mediocre or throwaway.

It’s worth seeing both films, for fans of the genre, of course, and forming your own opinion of your favourite films/short stories.