ABCs of Death 2 (2014) Reviews

• Moderate and restrained, expected and less shocking

  ArchonCinemaReviews2014-10-10

  ABCs of Death 2 revisits the idea of its predecessor of having 26 segments by 26 directors and is far more moderate and less creative. ABCs of Death 2 is a anthology film featuring twenty six shorts about death. As the opening sequence explains the concept: "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." The entire approach of this horror film is intriguing and ambitiously risky. As with the original ABCs of Death, the directors enlisted to participate in the film are typically up-and-comers of the horror genre. The film is exciting because those creating short segments have complete creative control and do not have to sacrifice their art for the sake of distributors and producers; a rarity in the film industry. Further, audiences are subjecting themselves to a wide array of subject matter ranging from the silly comedies to the stomach churning perverse. The mystery of the word and director only being revealed after the viewer has subjected themselves to the full three minute segment. The first ABCs of Death was an experience. There was a nice range of types of shorts. Some were downright ridiculous, some were incredibly disturbing, some were scary and some were funny. Some segments were so odd the viewer begged for its ending in the hope the next one would be better F, Z; others were memorably fantastic D, Q, X and everywhere in-between. The same can be said for ABCs of Death 2 but to a lesser extent. Overall the execution of the films on average are better but the outliers that represented the best and worse from its predecessor are significantly diminished in the second edition. ABCs of Death 2's segments are relatively safe and restrained, not nearly as creative, and impotently lacking satisfying conclusions. While some were good, none are memorable enough to stick with me a few years later like the original. My favorites were E, J, M, V and Z and the worst, in my opinion were H, P, R. The ones I felt were good up until the ending were: L, K, Q . The ones I thought were sadly expected but not necessarily bad were: N, X. For FULL reviews of recent releases, check out our website.

• On the whole, better than the first

  gridoon20192015-04-04

  Let's get down to business: A - A great start. It cleverly contrasts the glamorous fantasy with the harsh reality in the life of a professional assassin, and has a terrific ironic payoff, to boot. ***1/2 B - A little too much shaky cam, but a funny ending makes it worth it. *** C - Gruesome and brutal miscarriage of justice. *** D - Great claymation, but I did not understand the "story" at all. **1/2 E - Imaginative direction, WTF ending. **1/2 F - Well-done, sad tale, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (!) The woman in this one gives one of the strongest performances in the entire film. **1/2 G - The first complete dud. Ugly and disgusting, and not in a good way, either. Ugh! 0 H - A curious little animation piece. ** I - An one-joke premise (old matriarch won't die no matter how many times her inheritors "kill" her) that can barely sustain even three minutes of running time! *1/2 J - A disturbing, effective anti gay-intolerance parable, though I don't quite "get" the title (J is for Jesus). **1/2 K - Artistically made, with a beautiful leading lady and hypnotic imagery, but also a nonsensical story. **1/2 L - Poorly put together and disjointed. *1/2 M - Hard to believe THIS was voted the best entry in the long-running open-for-public competition that was held for choosing who would get to do this particular letter. *1/2 N - A creative N.Y. love story, with a macabre end. **1/2 O - Sounds better than it plays (zombies judge and condemn people to death for killing....zombies!). ** P - Awful sub-Three Stooges "comedy", though slightly more bearable than "G" above. 1/2 Q - Smart and funny. In America, can you marry your widow's sister? *** R - Very suspenseful, but a frustratingly incomplete ending. Probably the short most in need of expansion. **1/2 S - Good use of the split screen(s), some unexpected stings in the tail of this tale. *** T - A disappointing throwaway, I expected more from the Soska Sisters. *1/2 U - One of the best entries. Eloquently tells a complete story in three minutes - without any dialogue! *** V - A bold and creative technical experiment - largely successful. *** W - Wickedly funny and thoroughly perverse (wait till you see "Fantasy Man"!) *** X - Far from the most graphic, but probably the most extreme and sickening of the shorts, in terms of what happens in it. ** Y - Trademark Japanese wackiness - but with a point! **1/2 Z - Astonishingly gruesome "body horror", for the strongest stomachs only. Others might be advised to finish the movie five minutes earlier. ** On the whole, "ABCs of Death 2" improves upon its predecessor; the production values / special effects / camera work are superior, there are a couple of shorts that surpass any of those in the first film, and only two - G and P - out of the 26 are completely skip-worthy, IMO.

• A lot like the first ,but of course ,not like the first.

  dadatuuexx2014-10-25

  I will say that these ABC movies are great for some lite viewing.As i said in my review of the first one ,you get a chance to see an artist;s work ,and can keep track of the works that are out there to see.It also gives a person a red flag to a persons work that you may want to avoid in the future.Most of the shorts(each about 5 mins.) are well done ,as far as competent film making ,and production goes.I have a few new artists to follow ,and a few to avoid.Some of the stories are very cool,or very cool to watch(letter D,a personal fave ,cause this artists work is great),and others just had me shaking my head....(letter p )so ,to sum it up ,these are all new stories ,by all new filmmakers,doing what they did in part one.Telling stories,and showing us something worth watching.On that respect,they pulled it off again ,with style ,and flare.Worth a watch if you liked the first one.If this is all new to you ,the viewer ,go back and see the first one ,as this is not the kind of movie that you need to see the first one ,to follow the second.Good stuff,check it out.

• P-p-p-p is For F-f-f-f-f Worst short film I've ever seen

  luke-6382015-03-21

  A few of these films were pretty good. J, M, O, S,& V. They were creative, well written, or had a good twist. The rest were pretty meh. That's fine. I've seen enough short films. They're passion projects for aspiring film makers working to better their craft, and vent some creative juices. I can accept them well enough, appreciate the little nuggets of goodness that might shine through here and there, and appreciate the effort that went into making them, often a budget of little to nothing, as they made it in their free time. "P-p-p-p is for Scary" was possibly the worst short film I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot. How this ever made its way into this collection leaves me with just one of two conclusions. A: Purely through nepotism or bribery, or P: because there was no other film submitted for "P". If it was the latter, I would've hoped they just left it out. There were definitely some other bad ones in this collection, but this won the top prize of worst by a mile.

• An Atrocious Anthology

  SushiStoner1032014-11-18

  Where do i even start? Since the film itself never starts let alone finishes. Abc's of death 2 attempts to avoid all horror film cliché's but somehow manages to create new ones. The film is disgusting, a series of events that are so poorly executed by its lazy filming techniques and its embarrassingly low budget. The acting is horrific there were literally no effort put into this film which leaves me confused on how it eve made it to the big screen. Although i do have to admit it made slight improvements compared to the first film, which is one of my all time hated movies. The film was made for its shock factor as if it was a competition on which skit was capable of creating the most disgusting. You might as well stick to the human centipede franchise.