A very dark and distasteful alphabet soup
'A' is for agonizing, awful, and apocalyptic.
"B" is for bizarre, brutal, and bloody.
"D" is for disturbing, deeply disturbing, "S" for subversive, "T" for twisted and transgressive.
The ABCs of Death is an instant midnight movie, a morbid mishmash of styles and filmmaking formats - 26 films, 26 filmmakers from the four corners of the horror globe, all making short films about death.
It's not for everyone.
Spanish director Adrian Garcia Bogliano's "B is for Bigfoot" is an amusing account of a sexually aroused woman warning her boyfriend's little sister that girls who don't go to sleep by 8 are carried off and eaten by an abominable snowman who now lives in Mexico City. Yes, it has a gory payoff.
Marcel Sarmiento's "D is for Dogfight" may be the most disturbing (which is saying something), a vivid, ugly slow-motion parable about an underworld where dogs fight homeless men to the death. Until one dog, and one homeless guy, find common ground.
"K is for Klutz" is a laugh-out-loud animated affair about a blonde battling, to the death, something she tried and failed to get down the toilet on the first flush. That film's Danish animator Anders Morgenthaler wasn't the only one who thought toilet when he joined this project. Lee Hardcastle's comical and crudely made clay-animated "T is for Toilet," about toilet training a tyke, has a wicked payoff, too.
A couple of the American-made movies are built around "What can we make a movie about death around with the letter 'Q' or 'W'?" and are the most amateurish. "M is for Miscarriage" you can figure out on your own.
The blood flows, the gore grows, and the strain shows as the filmmakers try to find new ways to off people, new ways to gross out, and fresh attempts to offend (like child prostitution). About half of the short films work, and half don't. But even the half that do can be a grim slog for those not inured to the splatter / spatter / slasher end of the horror spectrum.
The ABCs of Death *1/2 (out of four stars)
Filmed by 26 directors. Distributed by Magnet Releasing.
Running time: 2 hours, 3 mins.
Parent's guide: No MPAA rating (gory, violent, and sexual content make it worthy of NC-17). No one under 18 admitted.
Playing at: Ritz Bourse
