Tuesday 22 October 2013

Review: The ABC's of Death (2012)

The ABC's of Death
IMDB rate: 4,8
Genre: Supernatural

Look what appeared on Netflix yesterday! I've wanted to watch this movie for such a long time already, but I never got around watching it. I've heard good things about this movie and bad things. 
The ABC's of Death are 26 segments with a death cause for every letter. It was not really what I hoped for though, I hoped that we'd see some awesome horror deaths and that each letter would represent some awesome creature, for example, Z for Zombie, V for Vampire etc. Unfortunately it were some random death causes rather than specific ones.
What did I think about it myself? I'm not really sure, some segments were really good and some were terribly bad. I think most of them were quite bad to be honest.


The ABC's of Death is an ambitious anthology film featuring segments directed by over two dozen of the world's leading talents in contemporary genre film. Inspired by children's educational ABC books, the motion picture is comprised of 26 individual chapters, each helmed by a different director assigned a letter of the alphabet. The directors were then given free reign in choosing a world to create a story involving death. Provocative, shocking, funny and ultimately confrontational; The ABC's of Death is the definitive snapshot of the diversity of modern horror. Drafthouse Films, Magnet Pictures and Timpson Films are proud to present this alphabetical arsenal of destruction orchestrated by what Fangoria calls "a stunning roll call of some of the most exciting names in horror across the world."

As I already said, there are 26 segments in this movie. They are very differs and have no connection at all with each other, that's what makes it fun to discuss them all!

A is for Apocalypse:
This was what the movie starts with and it pretty much gave me a huge 'WTF-feeling'. This could have been a really good segment if it actually contained an apocalypse, but instead we see a woman stabbing a man, which goes kinda wrong and afterwards you see that there's a bright red lightning nearing the window, which apparently is supposed to look like the apocalypse has started. Not really a good one.
My rate: 4/10

B is for Bigfoot
Not a bad segment, but it took awhile for me to realize what the name Bigfoot was good for. If you think about it, the people are telling about a mexican snowman, which could have been bigfoot. Since he's also a sort of Snowman. 
My rate: 6,5/10

C is for Cycle
This segment reminded me so much of the movie Triangle. I really love those cycle movies because they are so difficult to understand but eventually there will always be a part that can't be right compared with the rest. Good segment.
My rate: 7/10

D is for Dogfight
This was definitely my favorite segment. It was filmed amazingly, even the scenes with the dog were frightening. And then when the dog realizes who the guy is, he turns around and attacks his new boss. It was shown perfectly, and the emotions were really well shown, from dog and human. Beautiful story too.
My rate: 9/10

E is for Exterminate
Exterminate was a reasonable segment. It was not very interesting, but it was definitely not bad either. The little spiders crawling out of the man's ear was very frightening.
My rate: 6/10

F is for Fart
Well here is were the weird stuff starts, and of course it's from Japan. A girl loves farts and right before she dies she sniffs the farts of her teacher so the room is filled with yellow fart and then she is sucked into the teacher's bum where it's also filled with fart. Yeah....
My rate: 3/10

G is for Gravity
I did not really got what happened in this segment. It was over quite fast and nothing really happened. I searched for it on wikipedia and now I get what happened. I don't think it was a good segment, but this is mainly because I had no idea what the purpose of this one was. If it was shown a bit better I might have liked it a lot better
My rate: 3/10

H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion
Another weird one, Nazi-dogs and British dog pilots. Absolutely too weird to discuss.
My rate: 2/10

I is for Ingrown
Well, I literally don't have an idea of what was happening in this segment. A girl in a bathtub and a dude with a needle. She has a lot of itches and dies. A bit weird but it was filmed in a very interesting way.
My rate: 4,5/10

J is for Jidai-geki (Samurai Movie)
When a letter is too difficult to make a segment with, the directors and writers are cheating a bit. As you can see with this one, it is a reference to something with another meaning. Cheaters! Anyway, this segment was a rather strange one too. But what I mainly notice in this movie is that all the really weird segments are all Asian. This segment is about a Japanese guy who is making ridiculous facial expressions right before his head is being chopped off. The meaning behind this? You tell me...
My rate: 3/10

K is for Klutz
Basically it's about poo missing his owner who just shat him out. It's the first animation and well, that's probably the only thing special about it.
My rate: 3/10

L is for Libido
Libido is definitely a very strange segment, it's gross and kinda sick. But the story was powerful, and definitely one to remember, again, in a sick way. And of course, made by an asian guy. This segment would have fitted perfectly in A Serbian Film, that should say enough huh? Basically, it's a 'fapping-contest', where in every stage two guys need to masturbate to something on the stage. When they "finish" last, they will be killed. Every stage is being made more difficult. For example, the first few rounds include a few attractive woman, while the eleventh round includes a sick girl who is "enjoying" herself with a fake leg. And the twelfth round includes something way sicker than that, yes indeed, a little boy being molested by a fat dude. You don't actually see this (of course), but the idea behind is should be enough to make you sick. And then the next stage, having sex while the guy is being attacked by a chainsaw. You now understand why this segment would be perfect for A Serbian Film?
My rate: 7/10

M is for Miscarriage
A very short segment, but also quite a powerful one. There's a toilet that refuses to flush, a girl who searches for a plunger and afterwards there's a shot of what's inside the toilet: A lot of blood. Of course, your first thought would be that the girl is on her period or something, but afterwards you realize it's indeed a dead fetus. I quite liked this one.
My rate: 8/10



N is for Nuptials
I loved this segment. It's about a guy who makes a parrot talk and let's the parrot ask the girl to marry him. All very sweet and stuff, but afterwards the parrot keeps talking and reveals some rather interesting things about his affair. It was quite hilarious.
My rate: 8/10

O is for Orgasm
Sex and bubbles, that's what this segment is about and it that was rather boring.
My rate: 2/10

P is for Pressure
Another powerful segment. A mother is forced to prostitute herself to take care of her and her three children, then her money is stolen and she needs to do something way more awful to get the money.
There's not a word being said in this segment, but it sure was clear and very powerful.
My rate: 8/10

Q is for Quack
Not sure what to think about this one. It's being shown as if people are really arguing about what to make with the letter 'Q'. Then they decide to kill and duck (quack), everyone cares way more about this duck and that's being down quite cleverly, because eventually they killed each other instead of the duck.
 My rate: 6/10

R is for Removed
I really don't get what the purpose of this one was. Guy is in a hospital, he is being photographed, gets a bullet removed, gets aggressive and pushes a train which makes it rain blood. Yeah, that's about it and that does not create an amazing segment in my opinion. It was filmed really awesome, but unfortunately that's about it.
My rate: 4/10

S is for Speed
A decent segment. The story itself was not very interesting and seemed a lot like a combination between Death Proof and The Bold and the Beautiful. But the meaning behind the segment was done rather well. I liked the switch at the end.
My rate: 6,5/10

T is for Toilet
Toilet was more a funny segment because it was made with Clay. And not in a cool Wallace & Gromit way, but more in a very bad way. The bad animations made it quite funny and the story itself was quite funny too.
My rate: 6,5/10

U is for Unleashed
Ah, a vampire one! We unfortunately never saw this vampires because we saw everything through his eyes. It was made really awesome, but not a whole lot happened.
My rate: 7/10

V is for Vagitus
Yeah, another one that's too weird to discuss. I have no idea what was happening.
My rate: 4/10

W is for WTF!
A very weak and annoying attempt at making a segment.
My rate: 1/10

X is for XXL
I loved this one, it was a very good view on society, where it's often that women are being 'pushed' to be beautiful. This is mainly because of the false and fake advertising of photoshopped models and this is exactly what happened with this woman. The woman was being called fat and she wants to be skinny because everything around her says her to be. At that point she cuts off half of her bodyfat.
Super powerful and very true in an extreme way. We also see a familiar face which is Ivan Gonzalez from The Divide. Not so strange because The Divide was created by the same guy who developed XXL.
My rate: 8,5/10

Y is for Youngbuck
Good segment, very good casting and a good short story.
My rate: 7,5/10

Z is for Zetsumetsu
Yeah again, japanese segment. Too weird to discuss, so I won't attempt it.
My rate: 3/10


I searched all the directors of the segments on IMDB and I don't knew a whole lot. There were only 4 directors from which I've seen other work. These movies included The Divide, Hobo With a Shotgun, some of the segments of VHS and A Serbian Film. It's funny because I made a comparison with A Serbian Film with the segment Libido, but strangely enough that was not the one created by the same director. He created Remove.

Overall, The ABC's of Death is a strange movie. It has some really good segments but mostly it's crap. It's more a movie to make fun of when you're drunk (and that's exactly what I did the second time I watched it).
Is it worth a watch? Well, like I said, some segments are but the other ones are very hard to watch because they are so weird and mostly boring. In a sober condition it's quite a difficult and boring movie to watch. It was definitely not what I expected from this movie and afterwards I was quite disappointed by it.

My personal rate: 5/10




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