“The ABCs of Death” is an appallingly bad concoction of disgusting shorts that run through the alphabet but really should’ve stopped at “A.” A bloated omnibus pic from horror helmers Srdjan Spasojevic, Ti West, Jorge Michel Grau, Ben Wheatley and two dozen others, it features 26 variously morbid extrapolations on a given letter — “A” for “Apocalypse” and “B” for “Bigfoot,” etc. — but lacks even one with any imagination. Magnet Releasing’s repugnant yukfest will go the way of the distrib’s similar “V/H/S,” i.e., to VOD, where it’ll be DOA.
Why none of the many directors delivers a punchline to his or her five-minute joke of a splatter film is a question more compelling than whatever oozes at the edges of “The ABCs of Death.” The titles of West’s “Miscarriage,” Noburo Iguchi’s “Fart,” Kaare Andrews’ “Vagitus,” and Bruno Forzani and Helene Cattet’s “Orgasm” say it all; Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett’s “Quack” proves clever enough to be about filmmakers shooting a lewd short for an omnibus pic. Tech credits are disturbingly pro and vary little among the different episodes.
