The ABCs of Death (2013)
Directed by Hélène Cattet
An ambitious anthology film featuring segments directed by over two dozen of the world's leading talents in contemporary genre film. Inspired by children's educational ABC books, the film comprises 26 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.
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4 films that influenced The ABCs of Death
What critics say influenced The ABCs of Death
Speaking of tributes, homages and remakes, there’s a version of Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal” as guns-‘n’-girls exploitation king Russ Meyer might have made it (that’s by Jake West), and a mysterious, allegorical “Frankenstein” fable from Serbian filmmaker Srdjan Spasojevic that feels like a collaboration between Pedro Almodóvar and Andrei Tarkovsky.
One easily recognizes Srdjan Spasojevic ( A Serbian Film ) in Removed's equation of the body and the grotesqueries it's capable of with the possibilities and fragility of celluloid, Bruno Forzani and Héléne Cattet ( Amer ) in the appropriately titled Orgasm's copious ejaculation of hyper-symbolic, giallo-influenced imagery, Ben Wheatley in the disposable Unearthed's regurgitation of Kill List 's scorched-earth-looking kitchen-sink-drama-meets-hitman-thriller vibe (the whole thing is framed from the point of view of a vampire about to get staked), and Xavier Gens in the virtuosic, Kronos Quartet-sounding XXL's mix of profoundly graphic body horror and psychologically attuned social commentary (a similar ambition runs throughout Simon Rumley's startlingly humane Pressure, about the lengths a woman is pushed to in order to support her children).
Most of the directors here will be totally unfamiliar to American audiences, and even the ones who’ve actually had films released, like Nacho Vigalondo (of the Spanish time-travel paradox “Timecrimes”), Ben Wheatley (of the dark and ridiculous British B-movie “Kill List” ) or Jorge Michel Grau (of the Mexican cannibal drama “We Are What We Are”), are not exactly household names.
Other filmmakers range from American Ti West (“House of the Devil”), whose “M is for Miscarriage” is one of the more stomach-churning entries, to controversial filmmaker Srdjan Spasojevic (“A Serbian Film”), who offers the bizarre “R is for Removed,” about a badly burned man whose skin is peeled by doctors to reveal 35mm film.
One easily recognizes Srdjan Spasojevic ( A Serbian Film ) in Removed's equation of the body and the grotesqueries it's capable of with the possibilities and fragility of celluloid, Bruno Forzani and Héléne Cattet ( Amer ) in the appropriately titled Orgasm's copious ejaculation of hyper-symbolic, giallo-influenced imagery, Ben Wheatley in the disposable Unearthed's regurgitation of Kill List 's scorched-earth-looking kitchen-sink-drama-meets-hitman-thriller vibe (the whole thing is framed from the point of view of a vampire about to get staked), and Xavier Gens in the virtuosic, Kronos Quartet-sounding XXL's mix of profoundly graphic body horror and psychologically attuned social commentary (a similar ambition runs throughout Simon Rumley's startlingly humane Pressure, about the lengths a woman is pushed to in order to support her children).
The letter “A,” for example, is for “Apocalypse,” and Timecrimes director Nacho Vigalondo took quite a bit of pleasure in telling an apocalyptic tale on a tiny budget, in a single location, and from a highly unusual perspective.
Spain’s Nacho Vigalondo (“Timecrimes”) directs the lead film, “A is for Apocalypse,” an oddly touching gore-fest about a woman who tries to kill a bedridden man with a knife, scalding water, and a frying pan, and then confesses, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
You wouldn't know Nacho Vigalondo was necessarily behind the willfully ambiguous Apocalypse, a gruesome trifle about a woman who either mercy-kills her bedridden husband because the world is going to hell outside or knifes him to death out of some long-gestating sense of romantic despair, and that it's Chilean filmmaker Ernesto Diaz Espinoza behind Cycle, a killer impression (and expansion) of Vigalondo's Timecrimes about a man who travels through the looking glass and confronts an alternate version of himself violently unpleased with his visiting self.
Most of the directors here will be totally unfamiliar to American audiences, and even the ones who’ve actually had films released, like Nacho Vigalondo (of the Spanish time-travel paradox “Timecrimes”), Ben Wheatley (of the dark and ridiculous British B-movie “Kill List” ) or Jorge Michel Grau (of the Mexican cannibal drama “We Are What We Are”), are not exactly household names.