Quote:
Originally Posted by ChronoGrl
The ABCs of Death (2012)
Man. I had been looking forward to this for quite some time, but I have to say, I was ridiculously disappointed. I actually liked the concept - Pulling some pretty great and well-known horror directors together to do a series of short films... But ultimately most of the films were disappointing or just plain lazy. I'll pull out some highlights (and low points):
High Points
I is for Ingrown by Jorge Michel Grau (We are What We Are)
Really intense, dark, and well-acted.
L is for Libido by Timo Tjahjanto (V/H/S)
Very disturbing, in a Visitor Q sort of way...
P is for Pressure by Simon Rumley (Red, White & Blue)
The only movie that gave you a true dark character study
V is for Vagitus by Kaare Andrews
Good scif- short
X is for XXL by Xavier Gens (Frontiers)
Absolutely brutal
Y is for Youngbuck by Jason Eisener (Hobo with a Shotgun)
Disturbing and well-done
Low Points
Self-Indulgent, self-referential crap: - Q is for Quack by Adam Wingard, Simon Barrett <-- Reminded me of everything I hated about Rubber
- W is for WTF by Jon Schnepp (Metalocalypse)
- R is for Removed by Srdjan Spasojevic (A Serbian Film)
Odd-random-"disturbing"-crap (I'm soooo over weird Asian movies) - F is for Fart by Noboru Iguchi (Machine Girl, Mutant Girl Squad) <-- I thought Iguchi was overrated with the aforementioned films and now I'm just done. This film was just garbage.
- Z is for Zetsumetsu by Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police) - Siiiiiiiigh. Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein girl was enough of a turn-off - This short was just offensive, but not in a clever or amusing sort of way. Gag.
- H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion by Thomas Malling - This short should have been better than it was.
And pretty much all of the other pieces that I haven't mentioned were relatively forgettable. WOW what a waste of talent.
HUGE disappointment.
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I think I liked this one better than CG (especially Q for some reason). There were some good shorts, some crap ones, and a lot that floated around the middle and flirted with one side of the the other but didn't quite make it. I think the biggest issue with this anthology was the amount of directors involved, the shorts just didn't have enough time to tell a good story in most cases. Other than the shorts she mentioned I have to say that I enjoyed Cycle and while I didn't care for Apocalypse when I saw it I look back on it fondly. I also dug the fact that Angela Bettis directed a short... just because.
I wasn't disappointed because I expected a horrible mish mash of low budget film student shorts (I didn't know much about this one going in) but I didn't love it by any means.
On a side note, I like Ti West's stuff but he needs to stay away from anthologies, his segments don't seem to turn out very well. I like his films but so far, not in love with the shorts...