Now on DVD and Blu-Ray is the eclectic short film collection ‘The ABCs of Death’. Directed by everyone you’ve never heard of from around the world, starring everyone else you’ve never heard of from around the world this film is a collection of all the mental, physical and sexual abuse that has happened to your friends that don’t remember their childhood. The premise is simple; twenty-six directors were given a letter each from the English alphabet and a single subject. Death. Each of the directors had to make a short film about death based on a word beginning with their assigned letter. E.g. ‘A is for Apocalypse’ or ‘F is for Fart’ (yeah that’s a real one).
The film received mixed reactions from critics, mixed reactions from my girlfriend, and mixed reactions from me. Some of the shorts are violent, some are interesting, some are so artsy that I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing and some are crazy. The Japanese ones are typically FUCKING MENTAL.
Everyone loves Japanese schoolgirls, which is why two thirds of my search history looks like a bloody family tree of Asian alumni. Some people enjoy different things, and the short film ‘F is for Fart’ is certainly a niche market. It start with one Japanese schoolgirl walking out of school and breaking wind creating a cartoon-like fluttering in her skirt. Seemingly caught by her teacher, who is an attractive Japanese woman, the girl becomes embarrassed and briefly discusses the matter before the earth farts a dangerous black gas into the air killing everyone in the school. Now I’m not sure about you, but my immediate reaction to a dangerous gas leak would probably be unpredictable, but I know what it definitely wouldn’t be the following event. They run into a room in the school together and out of fear and some lesbian eroticism the girl begs the teacher to fart in her face so that she may die from her gas and not the earths. Obviously the teacher thinks this is great idea and obviously after a few moments they BOTH end up inside the rectum of the teacher in some ethereal yellow world (yes the teacher is in her own ass).
Yup, you heard right... a yellow fart world.
Not a lot can freak you out after that experience you’d assume, and mostly you’d be correct but with some woman cutting off her body fat like its mutton, a mind fuck of an orgasm death, a series of people wanking themselves to death and a man laughing at his child being crushed by a toilet you’d be hard pushed not cringe, scream or join in the masturbation marathon for the rest of the twenty-six letter. ‘W is for WTF’ which is aptly named easily could have been the title of the whole film.
Now to be fair they aren’t all that crazy, ‘Q is for Quack’ is a great fourth wall breaking thing with duck orientated snuff film aspirations and there is a sweet one about a woman trying to flush a turd that keeps running around the bathroom at a party, but they are mostly crazy.
Almost every film is like the daydream of a psychopath or a paranoid schizophrenic, and the one about Spiders is enough to turn you into either one of those things. I’m fairly sure having watched this film could be used as an acceptable defence plea in court, somewhere in between insanity and guilty. The weirdest thing is I enjoyed this film mostly, and have suggested it to people I know. Though I’m not sure how their opinion of me will change once they’ve watched a couple of Asian men masturbate over a legless weeping woman. Especially after how much I told them they’d enjoy it.
So if you look for pedophilia, animal abuse, patricide, methane asphyxiation and self-harm to entertain you, then you need to get this film, but about an hour in you should phone the relevant authorities and have yourself arrested or sectioned. Which reminds me, I better find my phone.
David Roberts, CeX Ann Street, Belfast
The ABCs of Death at CeX
