Dir - multiple
Overall: MEH
The ABCs of Death was the big anthology horror release from 2012 along with the similarly themed V/H/S. Similar in that both movies feature several independent filmmakers given a small budget and complete creative control to make a bunch of horror shorts, there are twenty-six here with each one named after a letter in the alphabet. Lingering around five minutes in length each, the sheer number of ideas here means that it is basically impossible for them all to knock it out of the park. Not surprisingly, the two strongest stories are from Timo Tjahjanto and Ben Wheatley, both of whom have done outstanding work elsewhere in the horror genre, (the former with the best segment in this year’s V/H/S/2 and the later with last year's Kill List). Most disappointing is Ti West's “M”, topped only by the complete waste of time that is Andrew Traucki's “G”. Nearly all of the shorts are incredibly gory or disgusting in other, far stranger ways, (the almost unwatchable “F” segment per example). It is admirably ambitious, but far too uneven by design to remain engaging from front to back.
THE LORDS OF
SALEM
Dir - Rob Zombie
Overall: WOOF
Rob Zombie's Lords of Salem barely had a theatrical release and made the least amount of money out of his five feature films thus far. One of the most readily apparent issues is Sheri Moon Zombie being cast in the lead. Having to run the gamut of emotions in such a setting, Moon is noticeably out of her range here. She spends probably sixty-five percent of her scenes staring off into space, though this is admittingly intentional to create a very un-Zombie, trance-like mood. What is very Zombie-like is the awful script. If there was ever an active filmmaker out there who desperately needs a collaborator to insert some logic and help fine-tune his ideas, (ideas that on paper one could certainly make something out of), Zombie is that filmmaker. With an almost non-stop barrage of unintentionally silly moments and a rambling, embarrassingly pretentious climax, it is a mess to be sure. Zombie is clearly challenging himself here as it is unmistakably different in tone than his usual work, but his unchecked vision is almost fascinatingly disastrous.
Dir - Adam Wingard/David Bruckner/Ti West/Glenn McQuaid/Joe Swanberg/Radio Silence
Overall: GOOD
The found footage anthology film V/H/S is typically uneven as such projects often are, though fortunately more on the decent side than not. On the negative end of things, the linking segment by Adam Wingard is quite poor and not the least bit compelling, as is Ti West's “Second Honeymoon”. Gleenn McQuaid's “Tuesday the 17th” and Joe Swanberg's “The Sick Thing That Happened To Emily When She Was Younger” fair a little better, though still end up being mediocre. The three aforementioned stories all run in the middle which unfortunately diminish the overall flow. Thankfully, the bookending stories from Radio Silence's, (“10/31/98”), and David Bruckner, (“Amateur Night”), are very well done. The latter makes excellent use out of one of the horror film's less-utilized monsters and “10/31/98", though shorter in length, cuts quickly to the chase and delivers some genuinely skin-crawling visuals. These better segments are excellent enough to make the others more tolerable and to give the entire collection a solid recommendation.
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