The ABCs of Death (2013)★★★★★

While I didn’t find every minute of this exciting like with Tales of Halloween, I’d still rate this five out of five for the concept. It’s just so cool. And it’s well implemented here.

I particularly like that the chosen word is shown only after the segment (with the director’s name as well). I’ll refrain from spoiling any words here, because I love the effect this has of leaving the audience unable to predict where the story might be going. And I use story somewhat loosely here as some of these are more gory, less story.

There were only a few directors’ names I recognized (and about as many actors) and, unsurprisingly, they all appeared after segments I found particularly entertaining (Ti West’s) or horrifying (Angela Bettis’s). The unknown directors didn’t disappoint me, though. I kept a running log of how I’d rate each segment (out of five), and it was a mix of threes and fours with a few fives thrown in.

If I had to pick a favorite letter, I’d probably say Q (usually followed by U) so I had pretty high expectations for that segment. Since it won’t really spoil anything to know this ahead of time, I can say that I was happy to see it fall to Adam Wingard (of V/H/S and other things), who didn’t let me down. If I had to pick a favorite segment, I’d have to go with T. For all the reasons.

Anyway, this is a really neat take on a horror anthology that works out rather well. I’m excited to watch the sequel tomorrow.