ABCs of Death 2 – Toronto After Dark 2014

Once again, 26 filmmakers present 26 ways to die in the horror anthology ABCs of Death 2.  As with the first film, each of the filmmakers were given creative freedom to create a short segment corresponding to the letter of the alphabet they were assigned, with each ending in a highly creative and often gory death.  Some of the filmmakers contributing to the second volume of the ABCS of Death include Rodney Ascher (Room 237), Alexandre Bustillo (Inside), Julian Gilbey (A Lonely Place to Die), E.L. Katz (Cheap Thrills), Aharon Keshales (Big Bad Wolves), Steven Kostanski (Manborg), Juan Martínez Moreno (Game of Werewolves), Vincenzo Natali (Cube), Jerome Sable (Stage Fright), and Jen and Sylvia Soska (American Mary). The original ABCs of Death was a film that I overall enjoyed, but thought that the segments were highly hit or miss, with there being some that I loved and others I absolutely hated.  While ABCs of Death 2 is still a bit hit or miss for me, I thought that there were many more hits this time around and the misses weren’t all that bad.  My enjoyment of each segment was quite dependent on how creative the filmmakers got with the letter they chose. Part of the fun is guessing what word the letter is going to represent, with many of the segments featuring red herrings. My favourite segment of the bunch was Steven Kostanski’s highly creative segment for the letter W, featuring the world of Zorb. Other standout segments include the contest winning M segment by Robert Boocheck, the highly suspenseful S segment by Juan Martínez Moreno, the Soska sister’s freaky T segment, and Chris Nash‘s incredibly gory segment for Z. Overall, ABCs of Death 2 was a fun lesson in death.8 | LIKED IT