One of the first things you learn as a child is your alphabet; they even have the ABC sing-song to go with it. The makers of The ABC's of Death want you to remember those childhood memories and then stomp on them.

The concept behind this collection of short films is pretty simple. The producers have gathered together an eccentric batch of twenty-six directors and assigned each a letter of the alphabet. From there they gave them each a budget of five grand and set them loose to do whatever they pleased. The only stipulations being that they had to involve death in some way and had to start and finish with the colour red. It's an idea I can fully get behind and I was super excited to head to the theatre when I found out this was playing an exclusive "one night only" showing. After spending 123 minutes in the darkness with fellow like-minded degenerates I came out with a list of directors I wanted to check out as well as high hopes they'd continue making this kind of thing - which they are since a sequel is already in planning stages and distributor Magnet is also responsible for the similar, more anthology-like, V/H/S series.

Seeing as this is such quick doses of blood, guts, horror, tastelessness, comedy, and bizarreness; it's pretty hard to write a proper review of what's within. The best thing for me to do is just go over my personal choices for the highlights, the lowlights, and the misfires. I will tell you, though, that there's a lot of individual styles on display here and the shorts range from juvenile crudity, amusing animation, general randomness, outright disturbing moments, and "I went to film school" artiness. This makes The ABCs of Death quite a treat as you're never really sure what's next.

First we'll focus on my favourites. If I had to actually pick the best segment it would definitely be Xavier Gan's utterly disturbing "X is for XXL" with its sickening tale of an obese girl who takes changing who she is way too literally. Having seen this I'm even more intrigued to see his flick Frontier(s). I also dug "D is for Dogfight" by Marcel Sarmiento because its combination of slow motion stylishness and zero dialogue mixed with unsettling animal violence just works. Also worth noting are Simon Rumley's "P is for Pressure" and its hyperactive pace, the oh-so-wrongness of "L is for Libido" by Timo Tjahjanto, Adam Wingard hilariously answering my question of "How the Hell are they going to do the letter Q" with the riotous "Q is for Quack", the crude old school claymation greatness of Lee Hardcastle's "T is for Toilet", and the point-of-view awesomeness that is Ben (Kill List) Wheatley's "U for Unearthed". It would also be wrong of me to not mention the outright offensiveness of Jason Eisner's "Y is for Youngbuck" (Ass sweat!) which just concretes him as one of my favourite fringe directors of the moment - it also helps that his prior efforts Hobo with a Shotgun and Treevenge also rock.

Of course, there's the ones that work to some degree but don't leave a hugely lasting impression on you and they include Adrian Garcia Bogliano's "B is for Bigfoot" and Jorge Michel Grau's "I is for Ingrown". There's also the post apocalyptic silliness that is Jake West's "S is for Speed" that should've been more fun than it turns out to be.

And then we hit the surprisingly small number of shorts I just didn't like. The pointless "C is for Cycle" by Ernesto Diaz Espinoza, the head scratching "G is for Gravity" by Andrew Traucki, and Kaare Andrew's "V is for Vagitus" which just felt to me like he was bragging about all the futuristic effects he could pull off for next to no money.

Which segments you like best will definitely depend on your mindset. If you have a bizarre sense of humour and aren't easily offended like myself, you'll probably like many of the same ones I did. However, just looking at the forums on IMDB for this flick is proof that everyone likes different ones best. That's what makes this so unique and cool. It's like the Baskin-Robbins of horror with 26 flavours to choose from. Some are nasty but lots are pretty delicious, it just depends on your taste buds. Really the only factual thing I learnt from the forums is that most people absolutely hated "F is for Fart" by Noboru Iguchi. I didn't but that's simply because I knew what to expect after recently watching Dead Sushi.

If you want to check out something different, then don't hesitate to watch this. It's a good start to what will, hopefully, spawn a few sequels. Considering they've already signed up some exciting people for the second like Cube director Vincenzo Natali, legendary animator Bill Plympton and American Mary's directing twin sisters the Soska's, I certainly can't wait for more! (Chris Hartley, 6/10/13)

Directed By: Kaare Andrews, Angela Bettis, Hélène Cattet, Ernesto Díaz Espinoza, Jason Eisener, Bruno Forzani, Adrián García Bogliano, Xavier Gens, Lee Hardcastle, Noboru Iguchi, Thomas Cappelen Malling, Jorge Michel Grau, Anders Morgenthaler, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Banjong Pisanthanakun, Simon Rumley, Marcel Sarmiento, Jon Schnepp, Srdjan Spasojevic, Timo Tjahjanto, Andrew Traucki, Nacho Vigalondo, Jake West, Ti West, Ben Wheatley, Adam Wingard, Yudai Yamaguchi.

Picture Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: Considering this gathers together 26 different shorts, each of varying style and composition, the results look pretty darn good. The 1080p bump gives this good sharpness and clarity while not completely destroying certain entries "grindhouse" look. I liked the flick's feel better when I saw it in theatres but I'm not about to complain.

Extras: They've packed this with lots of interesting stuff to help match the film's intriguing structure. All 26 shorts contain an individual commentary track so expect a lot of information in short, five minute bursts. There's also 14 various behind-the-scenes featurettes (some with multiple entries like "H is for Hydro-Electric Disfussion") and they're an eccentric bunch containing EPK-like footage, deleted scenes and interviews - plus you really haven't lived until you've heard "F is for Fart" director Iguchi proclaiming his love for flatulence. Lastly we get a skippable, brief "making of" taken from AXS TV as well as a trailer.