The ABCs of Death is a movie you can find on Netflix that started out as a pretty cool concept—they gathered 26 movie directors from around the world and gave them a letter. They were told to make a short skit that involves someone dying in a way that corresponds to the letter they were given.
Sounds awesome, right? Wrong. While this movie sounds like a match made in heaven for horror lovers, the execution was nothing short of miserable.
For starters, you’ve never heard of these directors—and there’s a reason for that. Some letters are lame and predictable, and others are just off the wall. Granted, some of the skits are supposed to be funny, there are more serious ones that just don’t quite hit the mark.
Also, I will warn you, this gets…raunchy for lack of a better term. It’s clear the directors were given no guidelines or restrictions when they were given their initial task. Watching this made me wonder how anyone could come up with such a thing (side note: I’m an art major—so that’s saying something) and I mean that in the worst way possible. I don’t consider myself a “sheltered” person, necessarily, but some of these caught me off guard. They are not for the faint of heart or the weak stomached.
All that being said, there was a fair amount of creativity and thought put into some (not all) of these skits, and there were a few that stood out to me—namely “D”—as a well-developed concept and execution. Unfortunately, these were few and far between.
Overall, this movie kind of sucked. Guessing the letters stopped being fun after “H”, and the only thing that really kept me from changing the channel was the hope that another funny skit would come on soon. It makes for a great conversation piece, sure, but if you’re alone and/or sober, just keep scrolling.
You’ve been warned.