The ABCs of Death

It's not educational.

   Okay, I'm still sort of tripping out from that last short film from The ABCs of Death.  That was crazy.  This is an anthology of twenty-six short films.  Each director was given a different letter of the alphabet and told to come up with a word that starts with that letter.  Then they made short films about those words which strongly feature death.
   I wasn't impressed with a lot of them.  Over half of them were just weird and all fuckered up.The films from Japan were pretty screwy.  One largly featured farting, another featured really messed up sexuality, and the last film of the anthology, "Z is for Zetsumetsu (Extinction)" was so messed up that I don't even have words to describe it.  The notes that I typed up as I watched said things like,

• WHHAAAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHAHHHHTTTTTTTTTTTTT?  
• i can't, i just can;t, this is too weird
• awiafo;nasfsaijo;adfa,;8jioewfiohfawnhjiofwohiawfwhjiwfeohifaiwgogougraohigroigrapjifewpjaewfivfnlvzifewigrwlngrorgaoigraio, 
• oh my god i'm crying

So that one was, you know, probably the weirdest of the twenty-six.

   Really, the anthology doesn't even start getting good until around "R Is for Removed."  This surrealist film began by showing a bloody, raw man laying in a hospital bed.  A doctor flays the man alive and somehow develops his flesh into film.  He is then placed in a cage, covered from head to toe in clothing.  Rabid fans rush up to him and swarm around the cage, fans of the movies pulled from the mutilated man's skin.  In the end, the skinned man's revenge is gruesome and goretastic.  This was when my opinion of the whole anthology began to change.

  "S Is for Speed" was a short film centered around a metaphor.  Absolutely loved it, from the grindhouse-style vibe to the muscle car and flame thrower.  Two pin-up-looking girls are fighting with each other as they are being chased by a hooded figure in the desert.  The hotter of the two throws the other girl in the trunk of a bitchin' muscle car and takes off.  The hooded figure catches her, however, when that bitchin' muscle car runs out of gas.  The twist is glorious and unexpected.  I was able to find a Youtube video of it if you want to watch it.
   "U Is for Unearthed" was a vampire movie like none I've ever seen before.  It was told entirely in the POV of the vampire as he fights the torch-wielding villagers.  Very cool.  Gruesome, too, when they pull the fangs out of the monster, the pulling, tearing sound made me squirm.
   Another really good one is "X Is for XXL," it was a truly gruesome examination of the price of beauty in an increasingly weight-conscious world.  A homely, obese woman is harassed all the way home, from the subway, all along the walk home, and when she arrives there the TV begins to blare a weight-loss commercial featuring a skinny, beautiful brunette.  The woman then proceeds to take her frustration out on her own body, in GOREY, GOREY ways.  Spoiler: The pose she strikes just before she drops dead from blood loss is probably the freakiest image in the entire movie.
   Bear with this one through all the weird, bad films (pretty much "B Is for Bigfoot" through "Q Is for Quack"), if only for the four truly cool films towards the end.  Even if you just skip to 1:14:30.  As a whole, I'd give The ABCs of Death three out of five blocks.  From 1:14:30 until end credits, I'd give it at least four.