By Ben Bussey
It is with some surprise that I sit down to write this review of The ABCs of Death 2 and realise that I am the first person at Brutal As Hell to do so. I say this because, over 2012 and 2013, its predecessor became one of the most written about movies to grace the pages (or, y’know, bandwidth) of this site, with no less than four reviews: after our guest contributor Eric covered the anthology movie at its Fantastic Fest 2012 premiere, further reviews ensued from myself, Tristan, and our former writer Kit. Given the format of the film – 26 short films from 26 different directors, each centring on a form of death represented by a letter of the alphabet – it’s one that should in theory leave you with a great deal to write about, and yet it proves so tricky to sum up concisely that it can paradoxically leave one without much to say at the end of the day. Lending a close critical eye to each individual chapter seems an exercise in futility given it would pretty much necessitate an entire book, let alone a thousand words or less; and given the sheer diversity of ideas and styles at play it’s also quite an undertaking to try and identify any overriding themes. The long and short of it was, The ABCs of Death was a cinematic experience quite unlike other, more akin to taking in a random splurge of clips on Youtube than a motion picture, and it was by turns as compelling and entertaining as it was exasperating and tedious.
And wouldn’t you know it – much the same is true of The ABCs of Death 2. But the difference this time is, we have experienced this before, and so (presumably) have the participating filmmakers. It must have been a strange feeling contributing to the original ABCs of Death, having no idea what anyone else’s chapters would look like, hence some coasted by on the bare minimum whilst others went way more out there than we might have anticipated. This time around the 26 directors obviously have a better idea of what works and what doesn’t in this context, and the bulk of the shorts here would fit into one of three categories: very silly, very strange, or very nasty. Or some combination thereof. (Okay, so technically that’s seven categories. Or maybe it isn’t, I’m not very good at maths.)
Of course, the audience also goes into The ABCs of Death 2 with a similar sense of what to expect this time around, and subsequently that thrill-of-the-new novelty value which made the original what it was is inevitably absent – and, for this writer at least, it gets old even faster than in the first film. Sure, it can be argued that if you’re not enjoying one particular chapter there’s no sense grumbling as the next one will be along soon enough – but when no chapter lasts longer than a few minutes, that really doesn’t give you long enough to get invested in anything that occurs.
That said, one of the key lessons learned from the first ABCs of Death would seem to be the optimum chapter length. The first had some chapters so brief and insubstantial you wondered why they even bothered (cough Ti West ahem), and others that didn’t seem to know when to stop, hence the movie dragged on to a rather excessive length of 124 minutes. At 117 minutes, The ABCs of Death 2 isn’t that much more concise, but each chapter does seem to fall more closely around the four minute mark – though there are still some that feel a little dragged out, and others that feel like they would have been better served in a longer format.
As for the specific highs and lows: as I said, I’m not about to go into detail on every last one of them, but as with the original I found myself favouring the more absurdist, comedic chapters such as the contributions from Julian Barrett, Steven Kostanski, Alejandro Brugues, and Robert Boocheck: indeed, given that Boocheck’s M is for Masticate won the international contest to be included in the final film, it’s kind of nice to see how heavily the film’s marketing has drawn on footage from his entry. Alas, too many other entries just seem to lean too hard on eccentricity – Jim Hosking, Erik Matti and in particular Todd Rohal’s were over-egging the pudding a bit much for my taste – whilst others were a bit too clever-clever for my liking (EL Katz and Larry Fessenden come to mind).
Invariably the main question likely to come up from The ABCs of Death 2 is whether or not it’ll lead to an ABCs of Death 3. Personally, I’d sooner they left it here. The anthology horror format seems to be thriving of late, the bulk of them taking a more manageable approach with fewer directors getting more time to work with, and common themes which keep them from feeling quite so sporadic. If the main legacy of The ABCs of Death (aside from potentially landing a dim-witted substitute teacher in jail) is to have helped revive anthology horror, then it’s more than done its job. What felt unique and different the first time is already starting to feel a little tiresome here; to retread the same path any more times would surely result in outright tedium.
Of course, I’ve written this whole damn thing working on the assumption that the reader will have already seen the original. If you haven’t – who knows, maybe you’ll think The ABCs of Death 2 is the dog’s bollocks.
The ABCs of Death 2 is released to UK DVD and Blu-ray on 23rd March 2015, from Monster Pictures.