The ABCs of Death (2012)
– Two enthusiasms of mine, readers of this blog will note, come together in The ABCs of Death: horror and anthology. Unfortunately, that’s about the nicest thing
I can say about the 26 shorts alphabetized in The ABCs of Death, because there are at best one or two tolerable
segments and a few memorable moments in what is otherwise an execrable mess marrying
the worst excesses of torture porn to some of the poorest examples of visual
narrative. The shorts that work tend to
be quite simple and straightforward, while it’s the high concept ones that fumble
on basic principles of storytelling. I
won’t methodically track and evaluate each of the 26 shorts (the Wikipedia page
is actually quite thorough in this regard), but I’ll single out a few. A and B aren’t bad, doing basic Twilight Zone style twist endings on
morality plays, while R and X are memorable for their intensely graphic gore
(in one, a man’s flesh is sliced and developed into celluloid; in the other, body
confidence leads a woman to take a turkey slicer to herself). F is, if you can believe it, a five-minute joke
about flatulence, while K deals with an unflushable turd – and I’m not
exaggerating here when I say there is far too much surface-level toilet humor,
even for a late-twenties male like myself.
(There is, and I’m not joking, even a short called “T for Toilet.”) Even with a few tolerable shorts, The ABCs of Death is far far less than the
sum of its parts, grating in places and downright dull in most.That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!
No comments:
Post a Comment