Tag Archives: The ABCs of Death

Hell Yeah! THE ABCs OF DEATH (The Long-Awaited, Bloody Good Horror Anthology) Is FINALLY AVAILABLE ON DEMAND January 31st! Ready To Learn Some ABCs? Read On!

30 January 2013

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I’ve covered this 26-part horror anthology film since July 2012 (I was actually sold the instant I heard the pitch/set-up), and after much frustrating bumping around with the release date, The ABCs of Death  will be available On Demand (The latest trailers say “Everywhere On Demand”, but obviously, you’ll need to check with your cable provider) beginning 12:01 AM January 31st, followed by a limited theatrical release on March 8th.  After a 6-month wait, you think we’re not waiting up to watch it after midnight Wednesday, the second it shows on the menu?

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They did finally release the list of every director, their letter, and the title of their segment. All we’ve known since late last year is Xavier Gens’ “X is For XXL” (supposed to be a huge standout, and gore-off) and of course, “T” contest winner Lee Hardcastle with his Claymation stand-out “T is for Toilet” (you can see it by hitting the link to this piece, some friendly advice. do NOT watch while eating, on hallucinogenics, feeling emotionally unstable, or if you have a rare fear of and/or nightmares about hungry carnivorous toilets).

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There’s some of my favorite directors (especially international ones) at the helm here to sweeten the already-great set-up, and the segment titles alone are enough to tip me off that I shouldn’t watch while feeling nauseous. Ready? Here’s the 26! To give an element of surprise, and also because I’ve got a deadline zooming at me head-on, I kept the listing in alphabetical order of the directors, rather than the letters. The movie will be showing them in alphabetical order, though!

Kaare Andrews   —  segment “V is for Vagitus”
Angela Bettis    —  segment “E is for Exterminate”
Hélène Cattet    —   segment “O is for Orgasm”
Ernesto Díaz Espinoza   —   segment “C is for Cycle”
Jason Eisener    —  segment “Y Is for Youngbuck”*
Bruno Forzani    —   segment “O is for Orgasm”
Adrián García Bogliano  —  segment “B Is for Bigfoot”
Xavier Gens   —  segment  “X Is for XXL”*
Lee Hardcastle    —  Contest Winning segment “T Is for Toilet”*
Noboru Iguchi  —  segment “F is for Fart”
Thomas Cappelen Malling  —  segment “H is for Hyrdo-Electric Diffusion”
Jorge Michel Grau  — segment “I is for Ingrown”
Anders Morgenthaler    —   segment “K is for Klutz”
Yoshihiro Nishimura   —  segment “Z is for Zetsumetsu”*
Banjong Pisanthanakun  — segment “N is for Nuptials” *
Simon Rumley   —  segment “P Is for Pressure”
Marcel Sarmiento   —  segment “D Is for Dogfight” *
Jon Schnepp —  segment “W is for WTF?”
Srdjan Spasojevic   —  segment “R Is for Removed”
Timo Tjahjanto    —   segment “L is for Libido” *
Andrew Traucki  —  segment “G is for Gravity”
Nacho Vigalondo   — segment “A Is for Apocalypse”
Jake West  — segment “S is for Speed”
Ti West  — segment “M Is for Miscarriage”
Ben Wheatley   — segment “U Is for Unearthed”
Adam Wingard  —  segment “Q Is for Quack”*
Yudai Yamaguchi  —  segment “J is for Jidai-geki” *

We also took the liberty of marking (with an asterisk ) some of the segments that we’ve read consistently –and from several sources– were supposed to be especially impressive stand-outs …with the critics and the crowd’s biggest audience re-actions.

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Oh, we’re sure those aren’t the only nine out of twenty-six good ones; these are just the ones that get mentioned the most. I wouldn’t be surprised (especially judging from some of the still photos and titles) if many of the rest are too outrageous or offensive to describe. I believe four minutes is the time limit for each segment, so if there’s a few that you find boring or stupid, you won’t have to wait long until a good one comes up. Screen shot 2013-01-30 at 6.51.51 AM If even half of them are fun, we’ll be happy. I know there’s a few failed attempts, but with 26 segments and directors like Xavier Gens, Lee Hardcastle, and half the team responsible for the Thai horror classic Shutter  (Banjong Pisanthanakun) in there, fine with me.

If you’d rather have as few surprises as possible and know the exact order of the ways to die, here’s the ‘spoiler version’ of the above list. Just high-light to read.

  • A: Nacho Vigalondo (A for Apocalypse)
  • B: Adrian Garcia Bogliano (B Is for Bigfoot)
  • C: Ernesto Diaz Espinoza (C is for Cycle)
  • D: Marcel Sarmiento (D is for Dogfight)
  • E: Angela Bettis (E is for Exterminate)
  • F: Noboru Iguchi (F is for Fart)
  • G: Andrew Traucki (G is for Gravity)
  • H: Thomas Malling (H is for Hyrdo-Electric Diffusion)
  • I: Jorge Michel Grau (I is for Ingrown)
  • J: Yûdai Yamaguchi (J is for Jidai-geki)
  • K: Anders Morgenthaler (K is for Klutz)
  • L: Timo Tjahjanto (L is for Libido)
  • M: Ti West (M for Miscarriage)
  • N: Banjong Pisanthanakun (N is for Nuptials)
  • O: Bruno Forzani, Héléne Cattet (O is for Orgasm)
  • P: Simon Rumley (P is for Pressure)
  • Q: Adam Wingard, Simon Barrett (Q for Quack)
  • R: Srdjan Spasojevic (R is for Removed)
  • S: Jake West (S is for Speed)
  • T: Lee Hardcastle (T is for Toilet)[4]
  • U: Ben Wheatley (U is for Unearthed)
  • V: Kaare Andrews (V is for Vagitus)
  • W: Jon Schnepp (W is for WTF)
  • X: Xavier Gens (X for XXL)
  • Y: Jason Eisener (Y for Young Buck)
  • Z: Yoshihiro Nishimura (Z is for Zetsumetsu)

And there’s PLENTY more information on The ABCs of Death where that came from! Keep your eyes peeled…er, perhaps not the right phrase at the right time. Watch this space. That’s better!

If you want to see the Red Band trailer, it’s in this post here. Check it out!

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Shorter Is Scarier: Why Horror Anthologies Need to Make a Comeback! By Ian Buckwalter of The Atlantic

26 January 2013

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What I should be doing is writing an article on the subject of horror anthology flicks myself. What I have  been doing is getting very little sleep, at odd hours,  causing me to do things like walk into a room, forget why, try to remember by going back in the original room, then ending up trying to take a nap. The other day I blanked on the correct title of An American Werewolf In London,  which I literally saw in the theater over ten times as a kid (thanks Mom) and probably 30 more times on VHS, then a dozen on DVD. I had the movie poster in my bedroom as a kid for, like, over a year. This leads me to believe I need to get some rest.

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Now… what was I saying?

 

There’s a very special place in my heart for horror anthology film;, so special that I am currently unable to articulate how and why when I’m this sleep-deprived, so I’ll rhapsodize about them when I can start a long sentence and then not have to stop at least once partway through because I lost my chain of thought.

While we don’t agree on everything (full-length horror needs to stick around), the writer is definitely onto something when it comes to why horror anthologies work so well.:

 

…short horror needs only a simple central idea, a few minutes of tension buildup, good scares to follow, and a clever resolution. Get in, get scary, and get out.

There you have it. Until my brain is firing on all cylinders, click on the big red link below to  read this great piece from The Atlantic Post by I –

Shorter Is Scarier: Why Horror Anthologies Need to Make a Comeback – The Atlantic.

 

Mr. Buckwalter spends time focusing on the recent anthology films V/H/S  –it looks like we differed on which segments were best, but I’m not going to go into that when I haven’t even written a review yet*– and brings up the highly anticipated ABCs of Death.  You know, the one that Magnet Releasing keeps pushing back the fucking release date on when we’ve been waiting, along with quite a few others, since last July, goddamnit! I doubt the directors, especially the ones whose work is appearing in a film  for the first time, are feeling especially patient right now either. He just articulates so well why horror anthologies (that have at least two decent segments, though sometimes one segment that is exceptionally good can make up for the rest of the bad or mediocre ones). An uneven horror anthology film beats a shitty 90-minute horror feature any day of the week.

Ian Buckwalter is a freelance film writer based in Washington, D.C. He contributes regularly to NPR, Washingtonian, and DCist.

 

Do you like me?

Do you like me?

 

*though we paid $9.99 to watch it On Demand in August, I do want to rent it for the deleted scenes from “10/31/98” and behind the scenes featurettes on “Amateur Night”,  the ones I almost levitated watching, but… oh yeah. Sleep deprivation and ADD are a terrible combo when trying not to go off on tangents.

 

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The Top Ten Horror Movies Our Hearts Are Pounding To See In 2013, Why They’re On Horror Boom’s Most Anticipated List, Plus Extras!

30 December 2012

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First, a quick site update (more to come). So, the holidays came so fast our ‘Christmas/Holiday Countdown’ consisted of exactly two holiday-themed posts (one, if you don’t count the actual Christmas greeting that contained this commercial). We were planning a sorta “Twelve Days Of Christmas” countdown. Even had notes jotted down for this grandiose scheme. Example- On the first day of Christmas, Horror Boom gave to Me- The Collector’s Backstory! On the second day, two reasons to avoid escalators (clip from Terror Firmer, Final Destination 4 clip) etc. all the way up to “Ten Dr. West jokes” and “Twelve Romero Zombie Kills”. That turned out to be waaaaaay  too ambitious. First problem, we came up with the idea ten days before Christmas, before we even wrote anything.  OK, let’s see, we could retro-post a few of them, let’s get working on that, first we got to take care of holiday shopping, but now we can catch up and (blink) oh, hey! It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow! Shit, we gotta get started on our wrapping! (blink) Wow, we need to send thank-you notes for those cool gifts.

OK, on to that 2013 projects/movies list!

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So, we were chatting with friends and started naming off our top five we were drooling to see. I went to jot them down, and realized there were ten movies we were all hopped up for.  Mrs. Horror Boom here got an actual adrenaline rush just writing the complete list down and seeing all ten at once. OK, if you want to get technical, one item on the list are the final four episodes of a certain TV show (that will air starting January second), but we doubt we’ll get  complaints on that, judging from the fact at least 50% of our traffic come from various American Horror Story Asylum-related searches (especially those tagged with “Pinhead Pepper”).

We couldn’t find a graceful way to include this in the title, but these are all coming out in the first half of 2013. Many will hit before Spring is officially here. After Memorial Day, we’ll probably do a list for the second half. Some of these all of us horror fans have been waiting for over 6 months (and almost a year on Inbred’s U.S. release). The ABCS os Death was supposed to be an early October release, for God’s sake.

There’s no way we’d get the list out in a timely manner if we attempted to rank them in order of excitement, so we decided to go with the release dates- first come, first written about.

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Here’s the entire list- we’ll go back and add links to the pieces focusing on each one as they get published. Also, these are in no particular order; we’re having trouble hunting down the release dates on several. Until then, several have previously written pieces with trailers and/or other cool stuff. We’ll take those down when we put up the links to the new spotlight pieces on each one. So let’s get it on!

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Most Anticipated Horror Movies of 2013
1. The ABCs of Death
2.  Maniac  re-boot
3.  Chan Wook Park’s  Stoker
4.  Mama
5. Carrie re-boot
6. American Mary
7.  Evil Dead re-boot (Raimi, Tapert, and Campbell approved)
8.  Inbred (US release)
9.  [REC] 4 – Apocalypse
10. “The Name Game”, “Spilt Milk, ” Continuum”,  and “Madness Ends”- AKA, the final four episodes (a little over roughly a mere three more hours) that will bring American Horror Story Asylum roaring through to the finish line of this American Horror Story chapter. 

If you’re looking for air dates, you can peep them here.  I highly doubt that we’re alone when we say we’re not ready to say goodbye yet to this cast of characters, and this story! 

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The final four episodes of American Horror Story Asylum are a great jumping off point for our list, and the first of the final four acts (The Name Game) is a matter of days away (January 2nd). So, read on about AHSA’s “final four” coming up next…

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The ABCs Of Death Release Date Bumped Back AGAIN, Goddamnit!

29 December 2012

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The release date for the sick, twisted, entertaining anthology film The ABCs of Death  has been bumped again!  AGAIN!  We’re putting together our list of Ten Most Anticipated Horror Projects in 2013, went to check WHEN in January it was set for, and found the new release date is March 8th of 2013. Well, shit.

We discovered the existence of this film in June of 2012, started writing about it, and remember thinking how the fuck are we going to wait till October to see this one?   Every once in a while, even though we knew chances were slim to none, we’d search On Demand’s “Indie” sub-section for Magnet Releasing because hey, you never know. Personally, they had me at “26 Directors – 26 Ways To Die” and everything else I heard was icing on the cake. A veritable extravaganza of icing (several flavors made by some of our favorite, trusted chefs) that had no nutritional value, would cause a crash after the 90-minute sugar rush, and could very well cause tooth decay …but fuck dental hygiene, it’s gonna be so yummy and that sugar rush is going to make us high as a kite, we want it to eat it now. GIMME!

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What’s that? You’re not open for business in four months, instead you’re opening next year? Well, that’s a real bummer, nothing we can do about that. Oh, you have samples now? Hot damn, that tasted as good as we thought!  See you in January! Well, it’s gonna be January in a week, let’s go down and double-check the opening da– HEY!  What’s this “Closed Till March” bullshit? WE’VE BEEN HUNGRY SINCE LAST SUMMER! Well, this time we’re doing something about it! This time we’re just gonna …have to …uh …wait some more.*

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Well, we’ve written a lot about it, and here’s the new VERY red band trailer (again, we also wrote about it here). As always, we’ll keep our eyes peeled for any new footage, promo stills, or info. Plus, we’ve still got the last five top picks from the “26th Director Contest” to post, which should help keep you going until March.

*what’s that? We’re taking the metaphor way too far? You can’t believe we kept going as long as we did? We’re sorry.

All-New NSFW Red Band Trailer For Upcoming “The ABCs of Death” (2012) Is Bloody, Sick Fun! (HD)

18 November 2012

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Oh, and if you have been eagerly anticipating the movie like I have, and keeping an eye out of reviews and news alerts, see if you can guess which clip is from the Xavier Gens segment “X is for XXL”, which almost every   review I’ve read pointed out as one of the most memorable and gruesome, in which a woman unhappy with her plus-size figure decides to do something about it …all at once.

 

“Warning! Contains Graphic Violence, Nudity, Graphic Content, Not Appropriate For Anyone Under”-–YOU’RE ON! You had me at “26 Directors – 26 Ways To Die,”  ABCs of Death Red Band Trailer. I’ve been psyched for this since July. Finally, the trailer for the film is here (though I loved the one composed of contest entries for the letter T, and am still posting my Top 20 Picks). The gloriously gory claymation horror short “T Is For Toilet” from Lee Hardcastle (which was the winner), “T is for Temptation,” and “T is for Table” are still the ones I really wish could be included in the feature film too,  as they hold up to multiple viewing and still make me shake my head and smile. For some reason “T is for Table” actually still frightens me, even though I was also practically jumping up and down the first time I saw it, it was so perfect. The short even has a little bit of a Final Destination  vibe to it; though I can’t really articulate intelligently why with all this over-the-counter cold medicine in me, I hope to later.

Before I post the trailer, let me just point out that I wanted to also put RED BAND TRAILER OF THE MONTH! in the title, but it wouldn’t fit. FUCK YEAH, MOTHERFUCKER! would have done it too (in all caps, with multiple exclamation points) but some of my relatives are just now checking out Horror Boom for the first time, and they wouldn’t be mad, but they’d be disappointed in me (which as anyone who has ever heard this from a parent knows, is much worse). You have to admit, that’s a great tagline for something that you have to be a legal adult to go see, where you already know what you’re getting is sick. The ABCs of Death: Fuck Yeah, Motherfucker.*

Oh, and if you have been early anticipating the movie like I have, and keep an eye out of reviews and news alerts, see if you can guess which clip is from the French horror director Xavier Gens “X is for XXL”, which almost every   review I’ve read pointed out as one of the most memorable and gruesome, in which a woman unhappy with her plus-size decides to do something about it …all at once. Hint: See featured photo.

OK, I wanted to get this up ASAP. More later, including some really NSFW official promo stills Magnet (the film’s distributor) has released to the press.

Oh, I have another great tagline that’d  fit and put asses in seats. The ABCs of Death: It’s Just So Wrong.

*yeah, I’ve seen 21 Jump Street  with Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, that’s where I got it. Did you know  there’s a rumor (that in probability is true, I just haven’t verified it yet, I saw it on The Hollywood Reporter in June) that Aaron Paul is going to be in the sequel? I am so there.

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