Candidate #1
ABCs OF DEATH 2
The following feature film was created by 26 directors from around the world. Each director was given
a letter of the alphabet and asked to choose a word.
They then created a
short tale of death that related to their chosen word. They had complete
artistic freedom regarding the content of their segments.
Anthologies
and consistency are rarely a close partnership.
Because
of so many factors, chances are, in any given anthology, there will probably be
entries that you will love, entries that you will not love, and entries that you will feel indifferent towards.*
I
guess the original The ABCs of Death
was simply too much of a mixed bag for me to feel right about giving it a
blanket ¡Qué horror! nod.
Thankfully,
that isn’t the case with the follow-up, the definite article-less ABCs of Death 2.
Among
the definite standouts, we’ve got:
the stop-motion grotesqueries of Robert Morgan’s “D is for Deloused”; Kristina
Buožytė and Bruno Samper’s “K is for Knell”; Jen and Sylvia Soska’s “T is for
Torture Porn”; and Chris Nash’s showstopping “Z is for Zygote.”
(Well,
it would have been a showstopper if
it had been anywhere else but at the end; as it is, it’s the most brilliant,
WTF ending the anthology could have hoped for. Nash is known for his
Skinfection Trilogy of short films: “My Main Squeeze”; “Blackhead”; and
“Liplock.” He also submitted the entry “T is for Thread” for The ABCs of Death, though that slot was
ultimately taken by Lee Hardcastle’s “T is for Toilet.”)
We’ve
got the excellently-paced and edited “N is for Nexus” by Larry Fessenden (yay!)
and “S is for Split” by Juan Martínez Moreno; the future dystopia of Vincenzo
Natali’s “U is for Utopia”; the sordid goings-on in Jerome Sable’s “V is for
Vacation”; and the gonzo bizarro “Y is for Youth” by Soichi Umezawa.
There’s
also the weighty horror of Julian Gilbey’s “C is for Capital Punishment”;
Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado’s “F is for Falling”; and Dennison Ramalho’s
“J is for Jesus.”
And entries from a few
other ¡Qué horror! alumni: “A is for Amateur,” directed
by E.L. Katz and written by David Chirchirillo (who collaborated on ¡Qué horror! 2014 title, Cheap Thrills) and “X is for Xylophone,” which sees Julien Maury
and Alexandre Bustillo once again work with their dark muse, Béatrice Dalle.
“Based
on a franchise dream by Ant Timpson,” with a title sequence directed and
animated by Wolfgang Matzl, ABCs of Death
2 is without a doubt a stronger title than its predecessor, and it most
definitely deserves a ¡Qué horror!
shout-out.
It’s
also given me a whole boatload of faith and excitement for the third
installment in this franchise dream, which is announced at the tail end of the
credits roll.
Huzzah!
*
There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, such as when all the segments
are executed by one person (Michael Dougherty’s Trick ‘r Treat, which wound up on the ¡Qué horror! 2010 Final 13) or if the number of
segments is low to begin with (Little Deaths, which has three segments; anthologies with four segments or more,
that’s where I think you start to get into trouble with consistency).
(ABCs of Death 2 OS courtesy of aintitcool.com.)
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