ABCs of Death 2 (2014)

I love this movie so much

You won't be disappointed!

Good concept, poorly executed.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Like the first film, this is a very hit or miss horror anthology film where filmmakers from around the world (mostly who you've never heard of) made horror themed shorts based on one letter of the alphabet. Most of the shorts are pretty dull, not particularly clever, and most often seem to focus on just being gory (and consequentially pretty boring). However, none of them are longer than 10 minutes, so nothing really overstays its's welcome. The best entries were shorts that acted as if the audience had suddenly been plopped into the middle of a larger story already in progress, which were C is for Capital Punishment (a Shirley Jackson-like story about a mob seeking justice for a missing girl), I is for Invincible (an Evil Dead-like story about greedy family members trying unsuccessfully to kill off the monstrous family patriarch), O is for Ochlocracy (following a zombie apocalypse, a kangaroo court run by the living dead puts a living woman on trial for her crimes of zombie killing), R is for Roulette (a suspenseful game of backroom Russian roulette), and the very funny W is for Wish (a 1980s style He-Man-like toy commercial transports two boys into a gritty version of the fantasy toy world). There were a few self contained stories that were clever, such as F is for Falling (a two person drama about an Israeli paratrooper stuck in a tree who's discovered by an arab boy), M is for Masticate (a cleverly shot slow motion film about a crazed man running down a sidewalk with a funny punchline), and N is for Nexus (another cleverly edited short about a man on his way to see his girlfriend on Halloween). These good shorts were enough to balance out the bad ones and make the film worth watching.

As the title of this review says, I was not expecting much from this anthology, but I actually found the majority of the shorts to at least be vaguely interesting. A lot of the shorts were more comedic than I was expecting, but I tend to enjoy horror-comedy more than straight horror so it was perfect for me and everyone who also enjoys some goofy moments in the films they watch. Of course, a handful of shorts were downright terrible, but since each piece is so short, it's fairly easy to overlook the negatives. I thought I would talk more in depth about my favorite and least favorite shorts. ***Here's where potential spoilers start***FAVS: A is for Amateur - now this short is not scary at all, but it was really well executed and had the perfect touch of humor. This was a really great way to start the film. D is for Deloused - this section was absolutely horrifying. It was done with Stop motion puppets, which made it all the more creepy. It really appeals to very human and basic fears, like bugs and becoming disfigured. This was the scariest of the shorts. J is for Jesus - I found this to be one of the more intelligent shorts that was the story of the comeuppance of two homophobic men torturing a gay man in the name of Jesus. The torture is freaky, but I really liked the message in this short. K is for Knell - I don't fully understand this short, especially the ending, but it was the most effective at creating a real sense of dread and suspense. O is for Ochlocracy - like the Jesus short, this bit was also quite intelligent, and I found the plot to be really clever. It was similar to C for Capital Punishment because of the whole mob mentality piece, but the zombie spin was, in my eyes, really brilliant. S is for Split - my favorite part of this short was the split screen. Overall, it wasn't particularly spectacular but the split really added an interesting aspect to the break-in story. W is for Wish - maybe it's just my nostalgia kicking in, but this short was super adorable and I loved seeing a "fantasy" world turning out to be hell. Y is for Youth - this short was the saddest of them all, featuring a girl fantasizing about killing her abusive parents as it is revealed that she self harms. I thought this short had a very human aspect to it that I really appreciated. LEAST FAVSG is for Granddad - I just found this short overly strange without any real explanation for the behavior of the characters. L is for Legacy - oh vey, this short made absolutely no sense and featured some brutally awful CG effects. T is for Torture Porn - simply put, this was unimaginative and predictable. U is for Utopia - again, this was not particularly imaginative or interesting. I'm sick of seeing films about not perfect people in a utopian society. V is for Vacation - featuring unlikable and unrealistic characters, this just felt like a crappy found footage flick.

This movie explores the concept of death and does so in an amusing and thought provoking manner. The premise is 26 directors make one short for one letter of the alphabet with death as the theme pulling them all together. Some of the acting here is very good with good performances in f for falling especially. Most of them do a very good job if keeping a tense environment but the best has to be k. Unfortunately they are a couple that fail to deliver like l and p. This film also has a dark sense of humor so if you are not into that short of thing I wouldn't recommend but if you are a true horror fan who appreciates the genre if horror especially if you like takes from the crypt them you'll love this movie

The second installment of the unusual anthology The ABCs of Death puts together another eclectic combination of filmmakers, themes and techniques. I think I liked this second film more than the first one, but it doesn't have the same extremes of grotesque subversion, or for the case, the same abysses of laziness or mediocrity. It would take too much space to talk about each one of the 26 short films, whose running time of 5 minutes or less results in a 125-minute film which never feels tiring due to the big variety of alternatives and focuses. Besides, if we are not liking a certain segment very much, we know it will end in a few minutes, and it will be replaced by other one, maybe with better luck. So, I will limit myself to mention the short films I liked the most, in alphabetical order: "B is for Badger", an interesting satire of the TV coverages which pretend to reflect the reality, even manipulating it for convenience; "D is for Deloused", an animated segment with a delirious imagination and a beautiful/repulsive visual style; "L is for Legacy", which allows us to meet an unusual culture; "N is for Nexus", quite an interesting work from director Larry Fessenden, experimenting with shapes and styles he hadn't previously employed in his filmography; "O is for Ochloracy", an ingenious segment which ignores the typical gore in order to present an innovative interpretation of the zombie invasion; "T is for Torture Porn", exactly what the title describes, but not like we expect to understand it; "U is for Utopia", a scathing satire of the obsession for physical perfection; "W is for Wish", a very entertaining display of violence and "retro" charm; and "Z is for Zygote", which is, in my opinion, the best one of all, because it's grotesque, disturbing and bloody, but with a solid emotional endorsement. There are many other entertaining segments, and fortunately, very few ones which aren't very satisfactory (I wouldn't say they are bad, but a bit weak or predictable). Nevertheless, my overall opinion of The ABCs of Death 2 is definitely positive, and I would like to see a third installment, as long as the same dynamism and variety is kept.