ABCs of Death 1, 2, 2.5 (2012-2016)

“What an ingenius concept! This film contains 26 unrelated vignettes directed by some of the best names in indie horror. Though not every vignette could be considered horror. They are tied together by the theme of death. Each director was given a letter and allowed to run with it. They were each to pick a word that started with that letter and create a short (and we do mean short) vignette around it. And they branch several different languages including Spanish, Japanese, French and English. Some are done with no dialogue at all. What came out of it was sometimes horrifying, sometimes disgusting, sometimes intriguing and sometimes just plain old messed up. This movie has something to horrify and disgust everyone. The author of this article actually had to fast forward through one that proved a little too disturbing. But we’ll get there. The movie doesn’t shy away from some really awful things including child molestation, suicide and sex.

One of the things we found interesting from a film perspective is that many of these films, despite being made separately, had very similar themes. Sexuality, bodily functions and body horror seemed to dominate the vignettes. These three themes are very difficult to pull off. There is a fine line between examining sex from a horror lens and just making some very odd pornography. And when it comes to bodily functions, it’s easy to make us laugh instead of scream. Some of the films that attempted these two themes failed miserably while others were triumphant.

Other films were incredibly unique and examined issues like suicide, the lies we tell to children and pedophilia.” – Den of Geek

“Words can not describe the experience I had watching The ABCs of Death, a series of 26 shorts named after each one of the letters of the alphabet and the many ways we could all die. I came into it expecting just a lot of typical 5-9 minute horror shorts and came out of the experience flabbergasted at the things I was forced to witness. And no, I do not mean this in a positive way. There are some good–even great–shorts in The ABCs of Death, and yet they’re all overshadowed by some of the most awful, idiotic, infantile material I’ve ever seen in any film experience in my lifetime as a cinephile.” – Movie Mezzanine