{"id":2769,"date":"2013-04-18T08:12:24","date_gmt":"2013-04-18T07:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/?p=2769"},"modified":"2013-05-03T23:22:22","modified_gmt":"2013-05-03T22:22:22","slug":"the-abcs-of-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2013\/04\/18\/the-abcs-of-death\/","title":{"rendered":"The ABCs of Death"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"ABC<\/a>
The ABCs of Death<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\nFormat:<\/B> Cinema

\nRelease date:<\/B> 26 April 2013

\nDistributor:<\/B> Monster Pictures

\nDirectors:<\/B> Various, including Adrián Garc\u00eda Bogliano, Marcel Sarmiento, Angela Bettis, Noburo Iguchi, Jorge Michel Grau, Yûdai Yamaguchi, Anders Morgenthaler, Timo Tjahjanto, Ti West, Bruno Forzani & H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Cattet, Srdjan Spasojevic, Jake West, Lee Hardcastle, Ben Wheatley, Xavier Gens, Jason Eisener, Yoshihiro Nishimura

\nUSA\/New Zealand 2012

\n123 mins
\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A high-concept portmanteau piece for which 26 modern horror directors were assigned with a letter of the alphabet and tasked with creating a short film. The resulting 123 minutes, from A for Apocalypse<\/i> to Z for Zetsumetzu<\/i> is, as you might expect, a mixed bag, with low-key, lo-fi naturalism next to cartoon expressionism, art house butting up against gross animation. <\/p>\n

The batting average for the shorts is pretty high overall, with few outright duds. The problem is that most of the contributors come from a similar age, sex and mindset, resulting in a cumulative blokey, snarky chat-room feel as the film progresses \u2013 a battle to be more transgressive, freaky and cool, with surprisingly few films aiming to actually scare you. The viewer starts to feel somewhat numb, clocking up where they are in the alphabet and wondering how much more T & A, toilets, reflex post-modernism, bugs and Cronenbergian ickiness they can take. <\/p>\n

For the record, Timo Tjahjanto wins the sickness race with Libido<\/i>; Ben Wheatley delivers a sharp, subjective camera shock with Unearthed<\/i>; Hydro-Electric Diffusion<\/i> is agreeably bonkers; Quack<\/i> and WTF<\/i> are pretty funny, in a knowing, American smartarse way; Youngbuck<\/i> winningly feels like a twisted loveletter to the 80\u2019s high school movie and Fart<\/i> and Zetsumetsu<\/i> (both Japanese) seem determined to throw as much weirdness as possible at the screen in the hope that some of it might mean something. For my money, the real standouts were Dogfight<\/i> by Marcel Samiento, a jagged little tale with a political edge that is scored, edited and shot to perfection, and Forzani\/Cattet\u2019s Orgasm<\/i>, which is a beautiful, erotic semi-abstract nightmare unlike anything else around it. But hell, dive in, there\u2019s something to upset everyone.<\/p>\n

Mark Stafford<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An anthology film made by 26 directors, with lo-fi naturalism next to cartoon expressionism, art house butting up against gross Animation.
\nReview by Mark Stafford<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[135,632,141],"class_list":["post-2769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-check-it-out","category-cinema-releases","tag-animation","tag-anthology-film","tag-horror-cinema"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/purUP-IF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2566,"url":"https:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2013\/01\/17\/vhs\/","url_meta":{"origin":2769,"position":0},"title":"V\/H\/S","author":"VirginieSelavy","date":"January 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting exercise in combining the portmanteau picture and the found-footage genre, V\/H\/S is the new offering from some of the hottest indie directors on the block. 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