The ABC's of Death Review

The ABCs of Death - I'm damn curious, so here goes with some running commentary on each segment :)

"A" is for Apocalypse by Nacho Vigalondo 

Dug this one



"B" is for Bigfoot by Adrian Garcia Bogliano

Should've been called "B" is for boobies 

Really did not like this one, very badly done, shot, and narrative was a complete car wreck 



"C" is for Cycle by Ernesto Diaz Espinoza 

Creepy vibe, interesting premise, kinda muddled just before the end, but better than "B". 



"D" is for Dogfight by Marcel Sarimento 

Loved, loved, loved this one. No dialogue at all, told completely with visual cues. Complete story, beginning, middle, end. Visually stunning, shot EXTREMELY well. 



"E" is for Exterminate by Angela Bettis 

TERRIBLE...ugh, where to start? Shot bad, story non-existent, horrible, obvious, badly done CGI. 



"F" is for Fart by Noboru Iguchi 

Umm, what did I just watch? 

Japanese school girls, Check. Japanese school girls naked making out, Check. Japanese school girls breathing each others farts...ummm check? 

Crazy Japanese? 

Not even a horror plot if you don't count one girl being sucked into the others ass... 



"G" is for Gravity by Andrew Trauki 

Worse than a high school attempt. 



"H" is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion by Thomas Cappelen Malling 

Dug this one. Excellent production values, great makeup, hilarious cartoony story line, and a nazi fox stripper. 



"I" is for Ingrown by Jorge Michel Grau 

Completely lost on this one, didn't get it. 



"J" is for Jidai-Geki by Yudai Yamaguchi 

Guess I just don't get Japanese humor? Completely pointless short, more comedy than anything. 



 "K" is for Klutz by Anders Morganthaler 

Animated piece this time...a girl fights with her own turd...umm yeah.



 "L" is for Libido by Timo Tjahjanto 

Another weird Japanese piece. Good production values, lots of gore, some uncomfortable implied pedophilia. 

These things are definitely getting weirder. 



"M" is for Miscarriage by Ti West 

Exactly what the title implies, a minute or so long piece, horrible camera used, shit production values, and a long, long shot on a toilet bowel. 

Worst of the bunch so far



"N" is for Nuptials by Banjong Pisanthanakun 

Talking parrot exposes a cheater...meh



"O" is for Orgasm by Bruno Forzani and Helene Cattet 

Another obvious one, with BDSM and multiple slow motion shots of bubbles bursting and apparently women blow bubbles when they reach climax. 

Man, just when I think these cant get any worse...



"P" is for Pressure by Simon Rumley 

Another piece w/o dialogue. A hooker with a heart of gold trying to provide for her kids, then some guy gives asks her to make a film and she gets paid to do bad things to a kitten. 

Yep, these directors are going for shock/taboo and not even trying to make a good, storytelling piece at this point. 



"Q" is for Quack by Adam Wingard 

Ironic piece about how the directors got Q and they don't know what kind of short to make, so they decide to kill a duck on screen, ends badly for them. 



"R" is for Removed by Srdjan Spasojevic 

Surreal piece. Doctors remove film strips from a guy (yeah dont ask) he finally escapes, pushes a train car and then collapses and then it rains blood. 

I guess it's supposed to a metaphor about how a director cuts a piece of himself to share with an audience and bleeds for his art? 

Or some shit 




I'm really starting to get pissed at some of these "directors" for wasting my time, a 5 yr old could make a better short film...




"S" is for Speed by Jake West 

Starts out with two chicks (who can't act AT ALL) running from a Vorhees wanna be. There's a nice hotrod car, some really bad, cheesy camera work, a flame thrower scene, and then apparently turns into a metaphor on the dangers of drug use...ummm WTF???



"T" is for Toilet by Lee Hardcastle

A claymation piece this time. About a killer toilet. 

I actually liked this one, and that's sad cause I only like it cause there's been such crap since the letter "D". 



"U" is for Unearthed by Ben Wheatley 

Now we're getting somewhere. A vampire gets killed, but it's shot from the POV of the vampire. A very unique take. Great effort.



"V" is for Vagitus by Kaare Andrews 

Sci-fi piece about a future where propagation is illegal, but you can earn a permit to have a child if you serve as an enforcement agent hunting down people who have illegal babies, includes a killer beheaded baby...what!



"W" is for WTF! by Jon Schnepp

*sigh* I'm not even going to bother addressing this one. So far, worst of the bunch and that's saying enough.



"X" is for XXL by Xavier Gens 

Fat girl gets made fun of, goes home and cuts all of the fat away, dies skinny. 

Oh you crazy French directors.



"Y" is for Young Buck by Jason Eisener 

Another one w/o dialogue, set to an 80's synth track. Old man takes young boy on a hunting trip, does bad things, boy comes back wearing a dead deer's head, impales and decapitates the man, does bad things to the head....

I kinda dug this one, it was different. 



- And to close out this mostly steaming pile of shit - 





"Z" is for Zetsumetsu by Yoshihiro Nishimura 

Let's see, where do I even start??? Another Japanese piece, seemingly very Anti-American, there's a Swastika, a chick with a 5 ft penis that has a knife that comes outta the end, there's a guy in a wheel chair that ejaculates rice, a bunch of naked men eating sushi, a girl fight with said girl with 5 ft rubber penis, penis gets sliced, somehow other chick can shoot vegetables out of her vagina, some other chick has 9/11 across her chest with the towers on one boob and a plane on the other, and she jumps up and down swing her boobs together...

As all this is going on there's a voice over about how Blacks hate White Americans and how nuclear energy is safe and yellow people are the best...no, I am NOT shitting you. 





So 4 out of 26 were worth watching, with only 2 being anywhere near good, how did this EVER get distribution?

A Serbian Film Review

NOTE: This review will contain ***Spoilers***

First off, believe the hype about this one. It is singly the most brutal, depraved, horrifying, uncomfortable (insert any other adjective or synonym) film I've watched to date. 

And yes, I watch them all. From Martyrs, Cannibal Holocaust, Irreversible, Men Behind the Sun, Audition, Antichrist, Salo, to  The Human Centipede, and a host of others, I've sought out and watched every single one. Yes, most of them deliver on what is promised, and yes, most of them are truly depraved and rest among the darkest side of horror film and cinema, in general. 

A Serbian Film, in a director of lesser skill, would've been a disaster. 


Let's talk about art first -

Art is: The creation of works of beauty or other special significance. 

Art should be designed to make the reader or viewer feel something, be it revulsion, sorrow, happiness, pain, or awe. 

In relation to cinema, there's been many attempts to claim certain hardcore, disturbing films are art, and yes, some of them truly are. Even with the violence, the gore, and the sexual depictions, there was something the director and/or writer were trying to say. Some excel at this, others, not so much. 

It's hard to shock me, as a viewer or reader. I, myself, have written some pretty graphic fiction. It made me uncomfortable, but I did it because it served the story. You see, for something that is graphic, gory, and depraved, there has to be an element of storytelling, a reason for the depictions on the screen. If there isn't, then it's nothing but shock value. 

***SPOILERS FOLLOW***