Okay! Want the good news or the bad news first?  Let’s get that less-than-positive news out of the way. You may recall an announcement in January that among the hundreds of entries for the 2013 “26th Director Contest” for the letter M this year, the winner (“M is for Masticate”) was chosen last December. Then in January 2014, we got all excited when there was an official press release that told us there would be an “ABCs of Death 1.5” that would be composed of 26 of the top entries for the contest, released in “early 2014”. Here’s the short version:

Drafthouse Films has announced that producers Ant Timpson and Tim League, in association with producer and competition organizer Ted Geoghegan, have selected 26 of the 541 entries for ABCs OF DEATH 2 (the winner was Robert Boocheck’s “M is for Masticate”), and combined them for ABCs OF DEATH 1.5. This omnibus will be available digitally early this year, and will also screen at select Alamo Drafthouse cinemas. “The production team had a real blast selecting the 26 shorts that make up ABCs OF DEATH 1.5,” says Timpson. “The hard part was only selecting 26, as the competition provided so many outstanding entries. We couldn’t be happier with the final lineup. There’s enough horror, humor, weirdness and, frankly, truly f**ked-up material to give even the most jaded fan a wakeup call from hell.”

You can read the longer version o trusty ole’ Fangoria.com that includes the titles of the shorts here. Well, as you may have noticed,early 2014 has come and gone, and we looked around all over the net but sadly could find absolutely no further mention of this release after the initial one. Other than someone else asking on a message board, “What the hell happened to ABCs of Death 1.5?” you could pretty much hear a pin drop since the January press release. We’ll try to find out. Several of them are available on You Tube, Vimeo, and the contest entry page, but we like the reveal of the title AFTER the short – in some cases, giving the cause-of-death word is even a spoiler.

OK, on to way betters news: The ABCs of Death 2 (tagline: Some People Never Learn) will be released on VOD October 2nd (a Thursday), and in select theaters on Friday, October 31st – now there’s a fun release date for you! No trailer or teaser yet, so we found something else entertaining that’ll be on The ABCs of Death 1.5 (whenever the hell THAT is- we’re thinking it’s not going to make it out before the main release, but we hope to be proven wrong).

We watched several of the “M” contest entries from last year, and as with the letter T, there’s several standouts. The one we picked to show you in this piece inexplicably didn’t make it into the top 26th, and there’s no reason why not (especially since it’s better in every way than a few entries –that we’ll be nice and keep nameless– that did make it to the top 26). We’re 99% sure that, if they’d gone by voting, and not the production team’s selections, it would have. Watch below for one of the best entries, “M is for Matchmaker” (no spoilers in the title), written and directed by Sean Tretta, with Tiffany Shepis (Nightmare man, The Violent Kind), Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), and Sebastian Kunnappilly (The Frankenstein Syndrome).

We’ll bring you more “M” finalists and their entries as the countdown to October 2nd (come on, even if you live in one of the select areas, can you REALLY wait an extra month when you could watch it on VOD in the comfort of your home?) continues. We actually held a couple of winners back because they were so gruesome and graphic we almost felt guilty posting them… almost!