''ABCs of Death 2'' is a 2014 American

comedy horror Comedy horror, also known as horror comedy, is a literary genre, literary, television genre, television, and film genre that combines elements of comedy and horror fiction. Comedy horror has been described as able to be categorized under three ty ...

anthology film An anthology film (also known as an omnibus film, package film, or portmanteau film) is a single film consisting of several shorter films, each complete in itself and distinguished from the other, though frequently tied together by a single theme ...

produced by Ant Timpson and Tim League. It contains 26 different shorts, each by different directors spanning various countries. It is a sequel to the 2012 film ''

The ABCs of Death ''The ABCs of Death'' is a 2012 American comedy horror anthology film produced by international producers and directed by filmmakers from around the world. The film contains 26 shorts, each by different directors spanning fifteen countries, incl ...

''. Directors featured include

Jim Hosking Jim Hosking is a British film director. His first short film, ''Little Clumps of Hair'', premiered on BBC Three. His short film ''Renegades'' premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010. He directed the segment "G is for Grandad" for the ...

Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen (born 20 June 1971) is a Nigerian film director and film producer. Career Imasuen has worked in the film industry since 1995 mainly as a film director and producer. He currently lives in Lagos. His films feature unexplo ...

, the

Soska sisters Jen Soska and Sylvia Soska (born April 29, 1983), also known as The Soska Sisters or The Twisted Twins, are Canadian twin sisters who collaborate as film directors, producers and screenwriters. They are known for directing often violent and vis ...

, Julian Barrett,

Rodney Ascher Rodney Ascher is an American film director, best known for his 2012 documentary '' Room 237''. Early life His mother is Jewish, and he resides in Hollywood. Awards *''Best Director Award'' at the Austin Fantastic Fest (2012, won for ''Room 237' ...

Kristina Buožytė Kristina Buožytė (; born October 9, 1982) is a Lithuanian film director, screenwriter and producer. In her early films she focused on women, explored their inner world and depicted them using fantasy elements. Her science fiction film '' Van ...

Larry Fessenden Laurence T. Fessenden (born March 23, 1963) is an American actor, producer, writer, director, film editor, and cinematographer. He is the founder of the New York based independent production outfit Glass Eye Pix. His writer/director credits inclu ...

Navot Papushado Navot Papushado ( he, נבות פפושדו; born 4 March 1980) is an Israeli film director and screenwriter. Early life Papushado was born in Haifa, Israel, to a Sephardic Jewish family. He resided in the northern Galilee community settlement ...

Aharon Keshales Aharon Keshales ( he, אהרון קשלס; born 16 April 1976) is an Israeli film director, screenwriter, and film critic. Biography Keshales was born in Jaffa, Israel, to a Sephardic Jewish family. He grew up in Bat Yam, Israel. He served as a s ...

Bill Plympton Bill Plympton (born April 30, 1946) is an American animator, graphic designer, cartoonist, and filmmaker best known for his 1987 Academy Awards-nominated animated short '' Your Face'' and his series of shorts featuring a dog character starting ...

, and

Vincenzo Natali Vincenzo Natali (born 1969) is an American-born Canadian film director and screenwriter, known for writing and directing Science fiction film, science fiction and horror films such as ''Cube (1997 film), Cube'', ''Cypher (film), Cypher'', ''Nothi ...

. The film received a much more positive response than its predecessor. A second sequel, '' ABCs of Death 2.5'', was released in late 2016.

Plot

Like the first film, the sequel is divided into 26 individual chapters, each helmed by a different director assigned a letter of the alphabet. The directors were then given free rein in choosing a word to create a story involving death. The varieties of death range from accidents to murders. A contest was held for the role of the 26th director. The winner was music video director Robert Boocheck, who submitted his short for M.

Content

The movie begins with a creepy stop-motion storybook that opens showing children doing a variety of fun activities that end up being very deadly (i.e. a jump rope slices a girl in half, children playing ball with a boy's head and a girl on a swing made from a boy's intestines). Throughout the film, a teacher with a skeleton face presents the titles to all the segments, with each of the segments ending and beginning with a focus on, or a fade into, the color black. In a post-credits scene a man ( Laurence R. Harvey) is seen masturbating to ''T is for Torture Porn'', but stops after being put off by the content.

Reception

The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported a 77% approval rating based on 31 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "''ABCs of Death 2'' delivers some inventively gory thrills, offering a surprising (albeit still somewhat uneven) upgrade over its predecessor."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which uses a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

, assigned a score of 53 out of 100 based on ten critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* * * * * * {{Erik Matti 2014 films 2014 black comedy films 2014 comedy horror films 2014 independent films 2014 LGBT-related films American black comedy films American comedy horror films American horror anthology films American independent films American sequel films American splatter films American supernatural horror films Films based on urban legends Films directed by Bill Plympton Films directed by Julian Gilbey Films directed by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo Films directed by Vincenzo Natali Films directed by the Soska sisters Films with screenplays by Vincenzo Natali LGBT-related horror films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films