Or: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

       What do all the letters of the alphabet have in common? Well, you can take each one of them and assign them to a deadly (or deathly) creed, a concept of death be it outlandish, terribly mundane or downright stupid.

        This is what The ABCs of Death’s ambition is: let 26 directors of varying caliber try and shock with either gruesome offerings or outlandish contributions. Unfortunately, as with almost every anthology films the results vary wildly from absolute ineffectiveness to psychedelic dementia.

        When talking about anthology films, four come specifically to mind: Ro.Go.Pa.G., Four Rooms, Creepshow and Aria. While Creepshow is the only one of these four that is tight and surprisingly consistent, the others have shown that, usually, the good outweighs the bad in these types of affairs. Take Ro.Go.Pa.G., for instance. Pasolini’s La Ricotta is magnificent when compared to Ugo Gregoretti’s Il Pollo Ruspante or Godard’s Il Nuovo Mondo. Then, Aria, where the segments offered by Robert Altman, Nicolas Roeg and Ken Russell blow the other ones out of the proverbial park.

         It’s expected then, that anthology films have some tragic misses in them but it’s also expected that there are segments that deliver in abundance. That’s the case with The ABCs of Death which supposedly has given complete artistic freedom to its directors, letting them loose all over the genre map. The results are unrestrainedly heterogeneous with some really atrocious material but for all the painful segments, there are the gorgeous and astounding ones that make up for the other ones.

          To do a complete review of each segment would be completely useless but I will list my favorites, the absolute worst and the mediocre ones with a short overview. Please be aware that there will most likely be spoilers but it’s for the best as it will help you jump straight to the good parts.

The Bad:

1. B is for Bigfoot. Adrian Garcia Bogliano’s segment. Luckily I haven’t seen any of his previous films as this segment is a complete mess plagued by soap-opera acting and not even the slightest trace of suspense.
2. E is for Exterminate. Angela Bettis’ (May, The Woman) segment. Somewhat humorous but it’s not helped by the fact that it looks too plain and washed out.
3. G is for Gravity. Andrew Traucki’s (The Reef) segment. Useless and easily one of the bottom three segments in this anthology.
4. Q is for Quack. Adam Wingard’s (V/H/S) segment is so smug and meta that it ends up being unbearably bad.
5. S is for Speed. Jake West’s (Doghouse) segment is, unfortunately, paradoxically boring even though it’s action-packed.
6. V is for Vagitus. Kaare Andrews’ (Altitude) segment is quite boring. I’ve lost interest in it somewhere after the first 30 seconds.
7. W is for WTF. Jon Schnepp’s (Metalocalypse) segment is the worst of them all and not because it’s non-sensical or because it’s low budget but because it’s devoid of any trace of fun.

The Mediocre:

1. A is for Apocalypse. Nacho Vigalondo’s (Cronocrimenes) segment. Decidedly mediocre and it’s baffling how it can be so humorless.
2. C is for Cycle. Ernesto Diaz Espinoza’s (Killtro) segment. It’s like a restrained and low key version of Cronocrimenes. Not bad but nothing to write home about.
3. H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion. Thomas Cappelen Malling’s segment is a love letter to furries. While it’s fun for a while, it does end up being slightly too long for its own good.
4. I is for Ingrown. Jorge Michel Grau’s (Somos lo que hay) segment is the strongest in terms of acting but it does tend to drone on after a very short while.
5. N is for Nuptials. Banjong Pisanthanakun’s (Shutter) segment. It’s somewhat amusing but gore-less. One of the more mediocre displays.
6. P is for Pressure. Simon Rumley’s probably very divisive segment based on some weird Japanese fetish. Unfortunately it’s not very good.
7. U is for Unearthed. Ben Wheatley’s ( Kill List) segment is very similar from a visual standpoint to its older brother, Kill List but, as opposed to that one, it’s rather forgettable.
8. Z is for Zetsumetsu. Yoshihiro Nishimua’s (Tokyo Gore Police, Suicide Club) segment is as over the top as expected from this director but it ends up falling flat on its face and, for all its excesses, it’s rather unimpressive.

The Good:

1. Y is for Youngbuck. Jason Eisener’s (Hobo with a shotgun) segment is easily my favorite of the entire anthology. It’s creepy, unsettling and it’s beautifully shot. Plus, the music is amazing.
2. X is for XXL. Xavier Gens’ (The Divide) segment is a social commentary about body image. The gore is beautiful and it’s highly entertaining.
3. T is for Toilet. Lee Hardcastle’s segment is the second animated feature. It’s a play on childhood fears done in claymation and it’s very entertaining.
4. R is for Removed. Srdjan Spasojevic’s (A Serbian Film) segment is full of wonderful body horror and gore with obvious influences from Cronenberg.
5. O if for Orgasm. Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s (Amer) segment. While I utterly hated Amer, this segment is gorgeous. It’s like the female orgasm explained in such a way that even a man will understand it.
6. J is for Jidai-Geki. Yudai Yamaguchi’s (Meatball Machine, Battlefield Baseball) segment is, as his first feature film, crazily funny.
7. K is for Klutz. Anders Morgenthaler’s segment is the first animated one in the anthology and, by God, it is criminally and insanely hilarious all the while being a cautionary tale.
8. L is for Libido. Timo Tjahjanto’s segment starts out like a masturbatory Battle Royale. Featuring pedophilia and amputees, it’s one of the better segments.
9. M is for Miscarriage. Ti West’s (House of the Devil, The Innkeepers) segment is one of the shortest here but it’s also one of the best due to its simplicity and impact.
10. F is for Farts. Noboru Iguchi’s (Dead Sushi, Zombie Ass) absolutely bonkers segment. What would you expect, however, from this director? It is utterly mad and I’m sure there’s some sort of social commentary in it about the educational system. Truly brilliant.
11. D is for Dogfight. Marcel Sarmiento’s (Deadgirl) segment. The first highlight of the film. It’s a slow motion visual orgasm which might upset some holier-than-thou animal lovers.

The ABCs of Death is by and large, a very ambitious project and I’m not sure how it will fare in cinemas but it’s very good festival material, even with all of it’s shortcomings. I will revisit some of its segments in the future because, as I’ve highlighted before, there are some real gems among the bad and/or mediocre shorts.

Score: 3.5/5