ABCs of Death 2 (2014)

Surprised that this has so few reviews.. I thought this was a very decent collection of macabre short films that mostly focus on monsters and death, and there's a terrific variety to the overlong cavalcade of terror, with some of them being comedic, dead serious, or incomprehensibly bizarre. A lot are enjoyable, not too many are exactly great, but to me not many are downright awful either..very mixed bag indeed! I love the multicultural aspect and how you get to experience different kinds of experimental and artistic approaches to the horror. It's a silly nitpick really but like with the original, one of the real downsides is that it gradually becomes quite the slog to watch if you're planning on sitting through the whole thing with one little tale endlessly going into another, and by the end you're fairly itching for it to wrap the hell up already! I'm only talking about the shorts that I was most impressed by, I'll leave the negativity to the other reviews. "D is For Deloused." Oh what a hideously beautiful work of art, it was so mesmeringly grotesque with all those bug things consuming the fleshy man-like thing and dissolving and spawning new larval crawling filth...oh I just loved it, it's so good! Robert Morgan is so skilled and his highly distinctive brand of animation is so absorbing that, if you're like me, you won't even care that you have no idea what's going on. Yeah that was right up my alley, I dug it! "G is For Grandad." To my way of thinking this grungy coarse tale of an equally revolting granddad and grandson who hate each other's guts is more complex than it first seems, because everything about it from the decor to how the horrible people look and sound feels purposefully designed to be as off-putting and hilarious awkward and vile as possible, and in its own way it's quite the artfully done little piece and it certainly got under my skin! "H is For Head games." I could see how some might not take to this one as it's not even really horror, it's a kaleidoscopic visual metaphor of a 'stormy' relationship, or a very passionate kiss! I sometimes enjoy different kinds of animation, and I thought that one was very fun and eye catching from start to finish. "J is For Jesus" I loved and found quite powerful and moving for how brutal it was. "N is for Nexus." While it could have done with just a little more punch to its conclusion, I thought this cleverly constructed little Halloween treat about people ending up at the wrong place at the wrong time at a specific moment was quite sharply directed and nicely suspenseful, and at the end Frankenstein is dead, and she becomes a macabre screaming Bride of death for real - which I found very cool! "O is for Ochlocracy." I found this loony satire of an undead kangaroo court with people being charged harshly by the 'cured' zombies for the zombies that they had to kill to defend themselves really funny and entertaining, and even a little poignant as the woman is sentenced to death by her own reformed zombie daughter who doesn't forgive her... "V is for Vacation." I was impressed by how brutal this found footage type offering of two guys in a foreign country who meet their doom at the hands of a mad prostitute was, I found it to be one of the more realistically disturbing and unnerving stories. "W is for Wish." Rather loved this madly epic and colourful romp of a child's fantasy turned into something twisted and weird in which two kids get sucked into the 80's Castle Grayskull type playset of their favourite action figures and find that it's not quite as rosy fun and black and white as they look from their side, it was a neat imaginative idea that could make for a cool movie, and it was creepy too, with one of the poor young boys being unceremoniously vaporised and He-Man being a pervert! "U is for Utopia" was I thought a very scary idea of a future society of genetically perfect people in which the ugly are immediately burned from existence on sight! What would such a 'paradise' ever be truly worth if it was built on such a nightmare? "Y is for Youth" I loved a lot, I found it to be a jaw-dropping explosion of insanely bizarre and creative metaphorical imagery, it had a giant burger monster, gross maggot hand, an electric guitar erupting from a guy's head, a French fry vacuum cleaner, it was so super freaky but it sure had a lot of energy and was one of the few shorts that ended on am absurdly uplifting note - hell yeah!!! "Z is for Zygote." This was the real gem of the movie and ended it on a very strong and satisfying note that kind of enriches the whole collective tone of the film by itself. It raised the gag factor by a mile and was easily capable of causing anyone's gorge to rise! The world of Zygote was so sharply realised and darkly rich that it felt like there could have been an entire picture made of it. It's repulsive on multiple levels as a teenage fetus forcibly takes over her mother's skin from within after ejecting out all the bones and organs in an astonishing display of gruesome body horror effects... It's an amazingly twisted tale that's so brilliantly visceral and thematically perverse and strange, you'd have to be made of stone not to have some kind of reaction to it! In the girl's defence she never knew what murder or a father was as up to that point she'd lived her existence inside a hideously distended womb! So no classic but a fun and exhaustive horror compilation horror, on repeated viewings you may benefit more from simply watching the chapters that you do like! See ya x

More miss than hit, again.The first ABCs of Death was a novel concept but the result was a mixed bag.The idea of both movies is that 26 different directors each take one letter of the alphabet, and make a short (4-5 minute) death-themed story on it. Segments are shown in order, ie from A to Z, and end with "(whatever) letter is for (something)'.Nice idea, but the execution didn't quite measure up to the concept. The short stories vary from very clever and interesting to incredibly stupid. Some are clearly made just with shock value, and no narrative, in mind.ABCs of Death 2 is slightly better than the first movie, but now the novelty has worn off. There are some great little stories - B (directed by and starring Julian Barratt, of The Might Boosh fame) is funny and interesting and C makes a very good point in a very short space of time.Less incredibly stupid stories than the first one, but not much more good ones either.Overall: so-so. More bad stories than good.

The idea is so great, let us gather some famous directors and let them do a short so we can compile it on a DVD. But sometimes you better watch out what you are doing, because i was looking forward to the second entry liking part 1 but after seen it I was left with a bitter feeling.For me the A en Z entry was by far the best. There are a few other ones that did deliver the gore and scare but most of the entries I asked myself, how did they ever got on this DVD. There's no gore or horror to catch. I have seen it before with the V/H/S franchise. Starting off above mediocre, part 2 being the best and part 3 sucks real hard. If you think you are going to sit and watch 2 hours of gore and horror then you are wrong. I don't mind the stop-motion shorts and done with clay, they are good but there's so much crap here that I hope part 3, which is announced already will pick up again the real horror. Maybe the Asian entries are above mediocre and do contain gore and full frontal, and A do deliver nudity and black humour, if all entries would have been done that way (or like Z) this would have been a gem but for know it's below mediocre.Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 3/5 Story 2,5/5 Comedy 0/5

Another 26 short films from prolific film makers and actors, showcasing death, violence, and general filth in all its 18 rated glory.And even though its a massive step forward from the almost pornagraphic first movie, but like a birthday party for children, some people have to spoil it for everybody else.Julien Barratts short is easily the funniest thing here, and there are some wonderful ideas, like a drug that turns people into zombies, and a zombie courtroom are both visceral and standout.But some are downright confusing, like the phone call that ends up with two ladies of the night killing their employees, shouldn't have made the call, and the chapter that spoils the flow and the fun of the film, the letter S.It starts off well enough, in the vein of Carpenters Halloween, and then you hear a baby crying, and your thinking to yourself, 'they won't, they won't, they won't....................I can't believe they did' and it really puts a dampener on what should be challenging fun.So its an enjoyable anthology of unique ideas, but S, and come to think of it Z, are just too over the top and insulting, you wouldn't want to watch it again.I certainly won't be..