Fucking. Hell.
I will tell you right now, this isn’t for people who are easily offended by gallons of blood and some of the most insane depravity ever put on screen. I will even go as far to say that this Red Band Trailer is by far and away tamer than the Extreme trailer for this movie that is currently playing at our local Alamo Drafthouse as a part of our Late Night shows. This was just a marathon event of twisted vignettes of horror folks, the Ironman Triathlon of gore and horror.
Twenty-six directors. Twenty-six ways to die. The ABCs OF DEATH is perhaps the most ambitious anthology film ever conceived with productions spanning fifteen countries and featuring segments directed by over two dozen of the world’s leading talents in contemporary genre film. Inspired by children’s educational books, the motion picture is comprised of twenty-six individual chapters; each helmed by a different director assigned a letter of the alphabet. The directors were then given free reign in choosing a word to create a story involving death. Provocative, shocking, funny and ultimately confrontational, THE ABC’s OF DEATH is the definitive vision of modern horror diversity. (c) Magnolia
I really want to stress that this Red Band trailer, other than the Green Band which shows you nothing of what the movie is about, is tame by magnitudes. I mean I was first exposed to this movie via hosting the Late Show at the Alamo Drafthouse and since it is an Alamo distributed movie, we get the precious Extreme Red Band trailer. And folks, I could not believe what I saw. I was mortified, but transfixed by this movie that is nothing by a cavalcade of the most depraved and wanton exploration into the depths that horror fans only dreamed about.
The movies selling point is that it is an ambitious horror anthology, combining the talents of 26 different directors from multiple countries with each director given free reign to create their beautifully disgusting art. Each director is given a letter of the alphabet and nothing else other than to use that letter to create a horrifying entry in a kid’s book of death. Each letter and vignette is vastly different than the next, but each cram as much shit into as possible. Some are novel and humorous in their violence, others just push the utter limit on what they can get away with.
It’s a marathon run that the viewer is put through. I almost wonder if people will even make it through it. I had a bit of a time getting through since it is just unrelenting with the visceral images and insane filmmaking. Would I watch it again? Probably not. Would i recommend it? Absolutely, but only for those that are ready for something that is completely mental in the most insane way possible. The ABCs of Death is just an incredible shit house of no rules filmmaking, but done in an inventive way that kept me glued to the screen, wondering what could possibly even come next. There are some winners mixed in with the loser segments, but overall I applaud the ambitious efforts put forth in this anthology of horror. I can’t say I am proud to have watch this, but it is a feather in the cap of a cinephile none the less.
