Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Cooktopi The acting in this movie is really good.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

drforeman Horror anthology. One of the most flexible oeuvres in all of film. 26 solid filmmakers given free rein to produce something innovative. Their imagination was the limit. They could have created any kind of cosmic horror they envisioned. So why was 80% of it clumsy, heavy-handed social commentary? All of humanity's fears at your disposal and you give us "Y Is for Youth," a ten minute sequence about a teenage cutter with a bad stepfather and neglectful mother learning to find her inner strength? In all seriousness - and it was so very serious - she fantasized a giant hand emerging from under her skirt to flip them an enormous bird. It was so on-the-nose it watched like a film student's freshman project. The most annoying part was how well the film was made... it would have been much easier to swallow if the visuals had been as cheap as the content. Allow me to save you some time: all male characters are thuggish, boorish, and/or cruel. All female characters are the victims of that cruelty and many take their revenge. Subtext is non-existent. There is very little in the way of supernatural horror: most of the sequences are just normal people hurting each other. If you're a millennial and spend a lot of time on Facebook this movie will give you that same warm glow of self-righteousness that fuels your ongoing quest for a world where nothing makes you think too much. If you're looking for a creative horror movie, however, I suggest you keep looking.

brando647 The first ABCS OF DEATH was a fun little experiment in short-form horror storytelling. Now the producers have returned with another 26 teams of filmmakers for a second lesson in blood, guts, and often laughs. I was pretty keen on the first one despite its weaknesses so I was more than happy to settle in for another round. For the unfamiliar, THE ABCS OF DEATH assembles horror filmmakers from around the world, gives them a budget, and assigns a letter of the alphabet around which they create a short film. To be honest, I actually didn't like this one when I first watched it. I thought it relied too heavily on shock value to get reactions, but a second viewing helped me realize I was applying my disgust for one or two particular shorts against the film as a whole. That's not fair, as there is actually a lot of good stuff here.THE GOOD: A, E, F, G, M, O, S, V, W, Y, and ZAs usual, I tended to love the crazier shorts the best. "Grandad" and "Masticate" were some of the funniest segments, but the honor for most insane goes to "Wish", where a couple of young boys are sucked into the world of an 80s era toy commercial (in the vein of He-Man) and realize it's not so fun anymore. The cheesy costumes and production design are perfect and the ending is equal parts funny and unsettling. "Amateur", "Equilibrium", and "Ochlocracy" get their share of laughs with "Equilibrium" earning some bonus points for creativity in camera blocking and choreography during an extended camera take. And then some of the filmmakers chose to go a more serious route. "Falling" is the simple tale of an Israeli paratrooper whose chute got caught in a tree and she's left at the mercy of a young Palestinian boy, injecting a bit of a social commentary. "Split" is one of the more brutal, as a man speaks with his wife over the phone during particularly punishing home invasion where we're reminded "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned".THE "BAD": …That's not really fair. I wouldn't go so far as to call any of these bad, necessarily. The collection has its low points, as any anthology is bound to. Some of them just weren't as memorable. "Nexus", "Knell", and "Utopia" were all well done but I didn't think they were on par with a lot of the stronger material. Really, I'd have loved "Knell" if I understood what it was going for. The "commentary" track was none too helpful but added some extra uneasiness with it's bizarre…what was it? Chant? Poem? I don't know but it probably would've been better if it'd been used as the main audio track for the short. I still wouldn't know what was going on, but it added an extra feeling of unease to an already strange short. I should also mention "P-P-P-P-SCARY!" to this section but…as completely out of place as it felt…I don't hate it. It's…weird…and it's not scary, but it's unique. Kudos for that.THE UGLY: D and X"Deloused" is the most nauseating segment in the entire film. That's isn't necessarily a complaint. It's a surreal stop-motion segment with some of the most hideous puppetry I've seen. Keep in mind I don't mean to say the puppets or design were lame or amateur; I mean they were the stuff of nightmares. Its hellish imagery ensures that it stands out against the other segments and guarantees you won't forget it. Meanwhile, "Xylophone" is the one segment I'd love to forget. After a second viewing, I realized this was the segment that painted the movie in a bad light for me. I'm not a fan of child death in film for the sole purpose of shock value. "Split" and "Wish" also involve child death/murder but neither is anywhere as gratuitous. This might not bother others, and that's cool, but it made me ill and I could've done without it.By the power of these 26 filmmakers combined, THE ABCS OF DEATH 2 is ultimately a stronger film than the first. There was a lot of really cool stuff here and it gives attention to aspiring horror filmmakers that have some awesome talent, and hopefully that attention leads to some bigger opportunities in the future. These movies provide a showcase for talent that might not get the coverage that the big studio films relish in, and I'm open for another round if the producers keep this franchise going.

claire-patzman As the title of this review says, I was not expecting much from this anthology, but I actually found the majority of the shorts to at least be vaguely interesting. A lot of the shorts were more comedic than I was expecting, but I tend to enjoy horror-comedy more than straight horror so it was perfect for me and everyone who also enjoys some goofy moments in the films they watch. Of course, a handful of shorts were downright terrible, but since each piece is so short, it's fairly easy to overlook the negatives. I thought I would talk more in depth about my favorite and least favorite shorts. ***Here's where potential spoilers start***FAVS: A is for Amateur - now this short is not scary at all, but it was really well executed and had the perfect touch of humor. This was a really great way to start the film. D is for Deloused - this section was absolutely horrifying. It was done with Stop motion puppets, which made it all the more creepy. It really appeals to very human and basic fears, like bugs and becoming disfigured. This was the scariest of the shorts. J is for Jesus - I found this to be one of the more intelligent shorts that was the story of the comeuppance of two homophobic men torturing a gay man in the name of Jesus. The torture is freaky, but I really liked the message in this short. K is for Knell - I don't fully understand this short, especially the ending, but it was the most effective at creating a real sense of dread and suspense. O is for Ochlocracy - like the Jesus short, this bit was also quite intelligent, and I found the plot to be really clever. It was similar to C for Capital Punishment because of the whole mob mentality piece, but the zombie spin was, in my eyes, really brilliant. S is for Split - my favorite part of this short was the split screen. Overall, it wasn't particularly spectacular but the split really added an interesting aspect to the break-in story. W is for Wish - maybe it's just my nostalgia kicking in, but this short was super adorable and I loved seeing a "fantasy" world turning out to be hell. Y is for Youth - this short was the saddest of them all, featuring a girl fantasizing about killing her abusive parents as it is revealed that she self harms. I thought this short had a very human aspect to it that I really appreciated. LEAST FAVSG is for Granddad - I just found this short overly strange without any real explanation for the behavior of the characters. L is for Legacy - oh vey, this short made absolutely no sense and featured some brutally awful CG effects. T is for Torture Porn - simply put, this was unimaginative and predictable. U is for Utopia - again, this was not particularly imaginative or interesting. I'm sick of seeing films about not perfect people in a utopian society. V is for Vacation - featuring unlikable and unrealistic characters, this just felt like a crappy found footage flick.

Argemaluco The second installment of the unusual anthology The ABCs of Death puts together another eclectic combination of filmmakers, themes and techniques. I think I liked this second film more than the first one, but it doesn't have the same extremes of grotesque subversion, or for the case, the same abysses of laziness or mediocrity. It would take too much space to talk about each one of the 26 short films, whose running time of 5 minutes or less results in a 125-minute film which never feels tiring due to the big variety of alternatives and focuses. Besides, if we are not liking a certain segment very much, we know it will end in a few minutes, and it will be replaced by other one, maybe with better luck. So, I will limit myself to mention the short films I liked the most, in alphabetical order: "B is for Badger", an interesting satire of the TV coverages which pretend to reflect the reality, even manipulating it for convenience; "D is for Deloused", an animated segment with a delirious imagination and a beautiful/repulsive visual style; "L is for Legacy", which allows us to meet an unusual culture; "N is for Nexus", quite an interesting work from director Larry Fessenden, experimenting with shapes and styles he hadn't previously employed in his filmography; "O is for Ochloracy", an ingenious segment which ignores the typical gore in order to present an innovative interpretation of the zombie invasion; "T is for Torture Porn", exactly what the title describes, but not like we expect to understand it; "U is for Utopia", a scathing satire of the obsession for physical perfection; "W is for Wish", a very entertaining display of violence and "retro" charm; and "Z is for Zygote", which is, in my opinion, the best one of all, because it's grotesque, disturbing and bloody, but with a solid emotional endorsement. There are many other entertaining segments, and fortunately, very few ones which aren't very satisfactory (I wouldn't say they are bad, but a bit weak or predictable). Nevertheless, my overall opinion of The ABCs of Death 2 is definitely positive, and I would like to see a third installment, as long as the same dynamism and variety is kept.