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Directors:
Various
Screenplay:
Various
Cast:
Various
Synopsis: Devised
by Ant Timpson and Tim League, The ABCs of Death picks twenty six directors from around the world,
one through a competition, and the others from their acclaim in horror and
genre cinema. Each director must make a short based around a letter in the
alphabet, it must begin and end with the colour red, and must have at least one
death within it.
For this anthology, I'm going to use a
different review method to give every segment its fair due. This'll be useful
for anthologies I might cover in the future, so expect this to be improved upon
and return someday...
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A
Is For Apocalypse (Dir. Nacho Vigalondo): The ABCs of Death is for me
an exceptionally underrated series of anthologies, up to two entries currently,
one that has been divisive and also dismissed for their quality by others. But
they've been both immensely pleasurable for me to watch. Starting with A, they
offer brief snapshots, puns and ideas which are not undermined by the
difficulties of sustaining a feature length work. While not original, Vigalando's beginning short about a
woman who realises she has little time to deal with her sick husband portrays
the concept with enough zest and interest to make it stand out.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
B
is for Bigfoot (Dir. Adrian Garcia Bogliano): The shorts are not all perfect, but
together they help each other stand up with the support around them. Bigfoot follows a boyfriend and
girlfriend trying to convince the former's little sister to go to bed early
with a story of a bigfoot who eats children, ending with the kind of twist you
find in a pulp horror yarn. As much as we love complex horror stories, shorts
like this one are amusing for simple shocks.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
C
is for Cycle (Dir. Ernesto Diaz Espinoza): The anthology franchise also enforced
a sense of international community between genre directors, more important for
me than many other anthologies barring V/H/S/2
(2013), stepping outside of language barriers and introducing voices from
around the world as participants. This anthology starts with three Latin
American directors, Cycle the most
interesting as it follows a man who finds himself in a temporal loop in his
backyard. It's like a few entries and leaves you with too brief a tale, wanting
more, but it works well as it stands.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
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D
is for Dogfight (Dir. Marcel Sarmiento): The ABCs of Death also
redeemed directors for me who I felt low of previously. Deadgirl (2008) had the potential, with a powder keg of a topic in
latent misogyny by way of a tale of two men and a zombified woman, but that
film proved to be miserable. Dogfight
from one of the same directors is a drastic improvement, a stylistic piece
about a man forced to fight a vicious dog in an underground fighting circle,
almost all shot in slow motion. Don't worry, if any viewers are unsettle by the
premise, as while it looks brutal the fighter was in fact the dog's trainer,
behind the scene footage for this short available on the commercial DVD showing
the short's best virtues, that it's a bold short film in terms of its look and
that, through elaborate training and a dog's intelligence to carry out acted
performances like in this, man and anime are truly friends, fitting considering
the twist in this particular tale.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
E
is for Exterminate (Dir. Angela Bettis): Some of the hosts would've suffered
from being by themselves rather than in this film, like this short by the lead actress
of May (2002), about a man's
ill-advised decision to try and swat a spider, but together amongst the others
here, the rewatches have made this film much more charming and entertaining
with frequent viewings.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
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F
is for Fart (Dir. Noboru Iguchi): This first film of the franchise was
divisive especially for its weirder content. One of the strangest themes amongst
the shorts, in serious and humorous tones, was of bathrooms, bodily functions
and toilets. F Is For Fart also
marks the first of the three Sushi
Typhoon stalwarts in the film, the tale of a schoolgirl who has a crush on
her female teacher and, in the middle of a sudden Armageddon, would rather die
smelling her senior's gastric winds than perish through gas induced petrification.
I've not been a fan of the Sushi Typhoon films
so far, irony seeped through the content and playing up to Western audiences
rather than trying to make strange, entertaining films for their own sake. I've
found that something obscurer in terms of z-grade Japanese genre cinema like Attack Swim Girl Team Vs. The Undead (2007)
much more rewarding because it was made seriously in tone with no qualms with
pulling out some of the most dumbfounding things possible. Fart however makes the case that the action orientated slant to the
Sushi Typhoon material is probably
why it has yet to sate my interest in the strange, suggesting more dramatic or
horror based work could appeal to me more
Also it has to be enforced that, while
I crave the bizarre in Japanese cinema like many a fan, I absolutely despise
any reference to the idea of "Weird Japan", which is an utterly xenophobic
concept even if there are examples in Japanese pop culture inexplicable to
explain. For me, there are plenty of cases where Japanese pop culture has
creators and artists happen to have odd senses of humour or delight in creating
content to surprise audiences. It's obvious F Is For Fart was made with humour, to see what it could get away
with like many an odd Japanese genre film, but unlike the irony felt in other Sushi Typhoon films, this has the
advantage of the short story being sincere in tone. I've managed to see a
behind the scenes mini-documentary on one of Iguchi's stranger pornographic films, HyperTrophy Genitals Girl (2009), and while what is shown during
the filmed production is utterly bizarre, it was clear that the material, even
without subtitles, was intentionally strange for the creators amusement. In every
image and piece of recorded footage of Iguchi
I've seen he's a chubby, affable guy who always seems to have a smile on his
face, greatly enjoying making the films he does. While The Machine Girl (2006) might deserve another chance, probably
continuing in the area of Fart would
be for the better for him rather than the action heavy (but sloppily done)
content of the more well known Sushi Typhoon
films. It has always been a highlight of the anthology for me, whilst
for others gross and dumb, because of how willing it was to stick to the
seriousness of its story of two women's love going beyond good taste, even if
the head-on-fire CGI is laughably obvious.
Abstract
Spectrum: Psychotronic
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low
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G
is for Gravity (Dir. Andrew Traucki): Gravity
has stood out for me ever since the first viewing of The ABCs of Death, entirely in first person depicting an individual
planning to commit suicide by way of surfing off the Australian coast. Brief
and barely onscreen for minutes, it nonetheless sticks out as a personal
favourite for how different it is.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
H
is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion (Dir. Thomas Malling): While Norwegian Ninja (2010) diminished in
time, Malling's entry here hasn't. WWII
meets a Looney Tunes cartoon meets
furries, an incredibly inventive short that would've labour intensive just to
design the costumes and body prosthetics for a dogman air pilot and the fox
woman who tricks him with her erotic dancing and is actually working for the
Nazis. The intentionally exaggerated and cartoon-like physics help cover up any
flaws in the effects, giving a character to them, and it feels like one of the
most extravagant of the shorts for its creativity. That a Norwegian director
decided to make this, with a British fighter pilot hero and Bulldog Winston Churchill
in a cameo, is hilarious in itself.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
I
is for Ingrown (Dir. Jorge Michel Grau): The anthology does suffer from tonal
shift problems and the most extreme happens with letter I, sandwiched in-between
two comedic shorts. Grau's depiction
of a woman about to be killed is visceral and interesting, but is disarming in
where it was positioned in the anthology.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
J
is for Jidai-geki (Dir. Yûdai Yamaguchi): In vast contrast to his feature film Yakuza Weapon (2011), I would like Yamaguchi to make more films like, a
comedy about the various and bizarre facial reactions that take place as ritual
seppuku is being performed. Another personal favour but it does emphasis, as
you'd see in actual judai-geki (samurai) films how facial expressions are an art
form in Japanese cinema from actors and actresses, for deadpan purposes here. Yamaguchi's filmography is actually full
of more comedy slanted material, such as a Detroit
Metal City live action adaptation, so I may have to investigate his career
a lot more.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
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K
is for Klutz (Dir. Anders Morgenthaler): Its strange that Morgenthaler
went from Princess (2006), a controversial
animated revenge film about a priest who kills sleazy pornographers with his
toddler niece with him, to a short animation about a woman terrorised by her
own turd in a bathroom. The pariah-like dismissal of toilet humour in cinema is
strange for me, and while Klutz is a
one-joke short, I don't mind that joke at all.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
L
is for Libido (Dir. Timo Tjahjanto): One of the most gruesome entries for
the anthology - a masturbation contest where male players are forced, strapped
to special chairs, to perform watching increasingly depraved acts with the
threat of death for the loser of each round. A very obvious metaphor about
viewing extreme cinema is felt in this short, but on this viewing it's the delirious
content of the short - the premise to small, unsettling details like a deer's
head on the wall smiling at the camera - that stands out the most. As much as
its overblown and tries too hard to be edgy, the unpredictability of it is what
you'd want in more cult films.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
M
Is For Miscarriage (Dir. Ti West): The most controversial of the shorts
as, depicting the title meaning with one actress, a low grade camera and a few
rooms, it was seen as a lazy entry that didn't look like it cost the amount given
to make it, more problematic as while other directors were trying their hardest
with the small budgets they had one of the most high profile of the group
produced this one. In hindsight its effectiveness as a brief jolt of nasty
realism is there, but it's not a surprise it was sandbagged as it was. Ti West is someone I've not really
gotten into anyway, House of the Devil
(2009) having a great two-thirds before the finale botched the entire
viewing experience. There're other directors in this anthology I want to catch
up to first.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
N
is for Nuptials (Dir. Banjong Pisanthanakun): A fun short about the ill-advised
decision of a boyfriend to impress his significant other with a trained parrot.
Sometimes a good laugh is enough and the parrot was cute.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
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O
is for Orgasm (Dirs. Bruno Forzani and Héléne Cattet): Originally
the inclusion of these two directors in the group was what led me to seeing
this anthology. An abstract depiction of a man and a woman during a sexual act
that becomes nasty soon after, this is the bridge between Amer (2009) and where they were heading with The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears (2013). It's for me the
best of the entire film for how unique it is, pushing a visual and audio
aesthetic that's about forcing you to feel every texture and sound in detail,
making the duo my favourite working genre directors.
It's not only the surreal images that
stick out - the sexual use for bubbles, the startling use of a glass eye - but
how ordinary objects like leather gloves are reinterpreted through the
incredible sound design and avant-garde influences, the sound of burning
tobacco becoming as prominent as the sound of a woman's gasps. The short is
brutal when it ends but the short is also sensual and mysterious. While the
directorial duo are indebted to Italian giallo cinema and Euro horror, they
possess a clear sensibility to create new images that puts them high above many
of the others directors in this anthology
Abstract
Spectrum: Psychtronic/Surrealism
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium
P is for Pressure (Dir. Simon Rumley):
Rumley's entry has the potential, if
his features are as good as it, to be in that same higher echelon as the
previous duo. Depicted in a chronology that shifts forwards continually, it
follows a woman who has to fed herself and her two children by working as a
prostitute. When savings for one of her daughters' birthday is stolen, she
takes the offer for something more extreme to find the replacement funds
quickly. The result is another strong entry, taking a drastically different
option as a short in the anthology by being a character drama rather than genre.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
Q
is for Quack (Dirs. Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett): Faced
with the most difficult letter to make a short for, Wingard and his usual screenwriter Barrett decided to play narcissistic, pretentious and drug addled
versions of themselves who come upon the idea of actually killing a living
creature on camera, in this case a duck, only for this to fail miserably. It's
an obvious idea to depict yourself as a bastard onscreen and mock filmmakers'
moral grounds, but when I was cold to Wingard
originally, the humour and playfulness of this short helped me become more
interested in him, enforced by You're
Next (2013) and The Guest (2014).
It also contains the most unnecessary and gratuitous topless shot of the anthology,
which is ridiculous in itself.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
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R
is for Removed (Dir. Srdjan Spasojevic): I've yet to see A Serbian Film (2010). That it's heavily censored in the UK was
always off-putting as was the hype around the film itself, many an Emperor's
New Clothes in cinema that I've suffered through especially in genre cinema.
Even if it's the censored UK cut and I've had the entire plot spoilt for me, I
feel I can eventually get around the notorious film, this short from Spasojevic becoming more and more fascinating
the more I view it. A man is kept under constant medical supervision in a
secret building, his badly mutilated flesh occasionally stripped off in surgery
to be transformed into film celluloid. The premise and how it connects to
cinema, including direct reference to the Lumière
Brothers' L'arrivée d'un train en
gare de La Ciotat (1896), is elusive to me but this is why the short has
grown on me too. It's body horror content, including a bullet made from skin,
stands out as much as the vague references that leave me curious to what is actually
behind it all. Whether A Serbian Film
would ever be good doesn't matter when Removed is becoming mesmerising the more
I view it.
Abstract
Spectrum: Psychtronic/Surrealism
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low
S
Is For Speed (Dir. Jake West): Not as bad as I once thought of it -
where a woman and her kidnap victim try to escape a hooded figure in the
American desert - but West's film is just okay. It's sad ending helps it
immensely but it's just okay. For me, my fellow countryman has my admiration
more for his documentaries on cult cinema such as the exceptional films on the
Video Nasties and British video censorship scandals.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
T
is for Toilet (Dir. Lee Hardcastle): Letting a member of the public win a
Letter, a slot, in the anthology next to acclaimed filmmakers was a great idea
from the producers, encouraging new voices as much as bringing in the well
regarded ones in. Here it proved to be a godsend as it meant the best toilet
related short was included, a claymation nightmare for a young boy learning to
leave the potty and use the normal bathroom. The crudeness of the animation,
fingerprints in the characters' clay forms, adds to the short's humour and
charm as much as the voice acting does. The amount of animation in The ABCs of Death films is another
admirable aspect of them, going as far as Bill
Plympton being asked to contribute for the sequel despite not being known
for outright genre work. Toilet is
fun, and in terms of wanting to see Lee
Hardcastle's other work, it's a shame one of the most intriguing, his reinterpretation
of John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) with Pingu characters, got into trouble for
copyright issues.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
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U
Is For Unearthed (Dir. Ben Wheatley): Wheatley is
something I've still debating. I wasn't fond of Kill List (2011), but Sightseers
(2012) was fun and A Field In
England (2013) was a bold movie that put me further into the pro-Wheatley camp. Unearthed is another strong idea from him, a first person
perspective from a vampire when the locals are ready to end his un-death. The bravado
of the first person for the entire short is a standout, alongside Gravity, but like A Field In England, the most interesting thing with Wheatley that
makes him a potential hope for British genre cinema is his different takes on
folklore and genre tropes.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
V
is for Vagitus (Dir. Kaare Andrews): Set in a future Canada where
unsanctioned maternity is outlawed, Vagitus
does suffer from ideas too bold for such a low budget for the shorts, but it
stands out as an interesting snapshot that, like the best entries, leaves you
wanting to see more of the director's films. That Andrews is as much a comic book creator as he is a filmmakers is a
positive as you'd want someone with this vision being allowed to make a feature
film.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
W is for WTF! (Dir. Jon Schnepp): About
the end of the world and the utter wacky weirdness that takes place as a
result, WTF! is from one of the
creators of Metalocalypse (2006-12) and
has grown on me for its strangeness - zombie clowns, kaiju sized walruses
fighting a metal bikini female warrior, a dog with a man's face - and other
such sights. But it does make the carnal sin of mine I usually hate in modern
cult cinema of presuming "surreal" means only blatantly odd images
rather than mood and unconventional juxtapositions. Letters F and R are far
more WTF and unconventional, the former for its sincere tone, the later for its
content's naturalistic style, while WTF!
fails in its goal despite being entertaining. The only thing close to its
desired goal is the apocalyptic ramblings of a news reporter in the soundtrack,
not only for his dogmatic speech but the eventual distortion until you cannot
understand a single word he's speaking, the only unsettling, bold thing in the
whole short.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
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X
is for XXL (Dir. Xavier Gens): Surprisingly the director of Hitman (2007) and Frontier(s) (2007) made a socially aware entry about an overweight
woman rectifying her state of constant taunting and isolation through an
improvised and gory physical operation on herself. I was cold to it before for
being obvious, but Gens' decision to
depict the subject of body consciousness, and execute it perfectly with such a
gristly and matter-of-fact tone, shines for me now.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
Y
is for Youngbuck (Dir. Jason Eisener): Made as a pop promo set to a Powerglove song, Eisener's choice of a
story of a young boy getting revenge on a paedophilic caretaker could be seen
as tasteless, but it's up to a creator to tackle whatever subject they want,
especially as he actually handles it with restraint despite the triumphant
synth instrumental and goring by deer head. Eisener
has been an interesting Canadian genre filmmaker who has not gotten a lot of
work. While fellow Canadians have made more films - Astron-6 through their own resources, the Soska sisters gaining a strange benefactor in the wrestling company
the WWE - Eisener's only feature
film has been Hobo With A Shotgun (2011)
and shorts by themselves or in anthologies like this. It's a shame as, with
this short, he has the chops to make interesting genre films.
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
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| From http://4.bp.blogspot.com |
Z
is for Zetsumetsu (Dir. Yoshihiro Nishimura): The short that ends The ABCs of Death is certainly a way to
end the whole two hours plus anthology with a bang. Some has viewed it as utter
shit. Others will view it as utterly dubious - an alternative Japan of radiated
mutants where a promotion of Japanese cuisine is shown through a Japanese Dr.
Strangelove ranting, naked people dressed as the a-bombs dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, and a fight between a dominatrix with a giant prosthetic, bladed
penis and a female detective left naked, scarred down one side and with a novel
way to use carrots as a projectile missile. The tastelessness goes as far as
some prickly political references, such as 9/11 painted on naked breasts, a
plane on one wobbling into skyscrapers on the other, and Japanese Dr.
Strangelove amongst saying his nation of "yellow people" love
tangerines claiming black Americans hate white Americans. On premise here, this
sounds like the most misguided, potentially offensive attempt at political satire
you could get.
But the fact that there's a Dr.
Strangelove figure in the short, and is named that in the end credits, suggests
to me this is all intentionally trying to be shocking on purpose than
malicious. Even if its misguided political humour, and the Japanese have a
strange obsession with referencing Nazis and politics in inappropriate places,
it comes off more as the Japanese equivalent of a Ken Russell set piece on this viewing. Russell was a man never above a mindboggling moment regardless of
good taste, such as in Mahler (1974)
where Robert Powell as the titular
composer metaphorically renounces his Jewish heritage for Catholicism by way of
an obstacle course ran by a naked, goosestepping Nazi dominatrix. Then there
was Lisztomania (1975), which has Roger Daltrey of The Who as Franz Liszt riding
a prophetic giant penis, Ringo Star as
the Pope and a Nazis Frankenstein's monster version of Richard Wagner mowing down stereotypical Jewish rabbis with an
electric guitar machine gun whilst a rock version of Ride of the Valkyries was playing in the score. In comparison, Zetsumetsu is as normal as an episode
of Coronation Street for an English
viewer like me who's seen how strange my country's pop culture has been as much
as Japan's.
It's clear the shock value is of
greater importance here as well, with clear black humour, because there's a
taboo here that would only be a shock for Japanese viewers - that because this is
a short made for a Western production, pubic hair and genitals on men and women
isn't blurred out, which is done even in Japanese pornography. Nishimura amongst the shocking things
that take place in this short clearly twigged onto this fact as he keeps having
salaryman figures stood in a row eating food in the complete buff as much as he
has very naked female actresses. Many will find the short incomprehensible, but
I find it an utterly memorable way to end the anthology even if I have no ideas
what was ingested making it.
Abstract
Spectrum: Psychotronic
Abstract
Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium
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Personal
Opinion:
The
ABCs of Death franchise has stood out as one of the few interesting things for
me in terms of genre cinema. The inconsistency and barrage of shorts is
actually as much of its appeal, as with the first and second films there's
always good shorts to counterbalance the failed ones. Everyone on the viewing
of the first has grown on me too, and the sub textual point of the franchise to
unite genre cinema from around the world is a very progressive one that isn't
done as much as it should outside of film festivals. The result is the
cinematic equivalent of binging on YouTube,
but it's very cinematic through its ABCs structure and the rollercoaster of
various tonal shifts you go through, between the avant-garde to literal toilet
humour, the length and strain felt by me as much part of the experience. Because
of this the flaws don't detract for me from rating this very highly.
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