An anthology film is ultimately only as good as the segments it contains, but The ABCs of Death is far superior to its predecessor because of consistent thematic improvements the 26 filmmakers each made. This is a combination of individual creative decisions and an overall push to use the format more effectively. With 26 short horror films, all based on a letter of the alphabet, The ABCs of Death had a few standouts like D and Q, but felt like a lark to most of the contributors. Most were sloppy and it didn’t feel like all of the filmmakers took the exercise seriously, especially Ti West with “M.”
Any hungry filmmaker would take the sequel opportunity to school those slacker filmmakers, or maybe the filmmakers chosen for ABCs of Death 2 were just more motivated to show what they could do with the short form. Most of the stories have a successful misdirect, and you end up watching each subsequent short guessing what the letter is going to mean. I got J and Z right, but S, R, I and G really had me guessing.
Of course there are occasional duds, but that is a matter of personal preference. My duds may be someone else’s favorite letters. The creative effort is so high in ABCs of Death 2 that even when it was just weird, like K, it was so well done that it’s admirable filmmaking. This time, Q is a real word, not a joke. As I said, Q was one of my favorite parts of ABCs 1 but that’s also why it feels like the filmmaker assigned Q said, “That’s cute, but let me show you how to make a Q movie.”
Across the board, the acting is solid. Part of what gave ABCs 1 an amateurish feel were casts who might have felt they weren’t making a real movie, so they didn’t take it seriously. ABCs 2 runs the spectrum from finely crafted production to guerrilla style or even intentionally cheesy, but the actors are all serving the material. Even the ones subjected to fake beards make their sincere performances come through.
Some highlights: E is cheesy and cute but really well composed and performed so it works. F is a real drama regardless of its horrific element. S delivers all the effective elements: construction of a helpless situation, guessing the letter and a real twist. I was guessing Split Screen or Stalker, but it wasn’t either of those. V actually uses cell phone found footage glitches effectively. W is for Wonderful as far as I’m concerned, and Z is the craziest damn mythology I can ever remember seeing.
I suppose knowing which filmmaker directed which letter is still a spoiler, and it’s part of the fun to see the title card after each segment. The filmmakers I’ve singled out will earn their praise retroactively when people remember I pointed out E, F, J, Q, R, S, V, W and Z so you’ll all remember those are the ones I thought were awesome. More importantly, as a whole The ABCs of Death 2 marks a collective evolution for the series.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
