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'The ABC's of Death' Coming from 25 Established Horror Filmmakers

by Ethan Anderton
May 13, 2011

Last October we heard about a horror take on the series of romantic vignettes from Paris Je T'aime in the form of a collection of horror shorts called Paris, I'll Kill You. Now we have word of a much more ambitious horror anthology from Drafthouse Films, Timpson Films and Magnet Releasing. The companies have announced a project called The ABC's of Death, a twenty-six chapter film that will showcase death in all its vicious wonder and brutal beauty. Twenty-five established directors will each be assigned a letter from the alphabet that represents a word to act as a springboard for a short story of death. More below!

The filmmakers tackling death in this anthology will be: Banjong Pisanthanakun (Shutter, Alone), Angela Bettis (Roman), Adrian Garcia Bogliano (Cold Sweat), Jason Eisener (Hobo With A Shotgun), Ernesto Diaz Espinoza (Mirageman), Bruno Forzani and Héléne Cattet (Amer), Gadi Harel (DeadGirl), Thomas Malling (Norwegian Ninja), Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police; Frankenstein Girl Vs. Vampire Girl), Simon Rumley (The Living and the Dead; Red, White and Blue), Tak Sakaguchi and Yuji Shimomura (Yakuza Weapon), Marcel Sarmiento (DeadGirl), Srdjan Spasojevic (A Serbian Film), Timo Tjahjanto (Macabre), Andrew Traucki (Black Water, The Reef), Nacho Vigalando (TimeCrimes), Jake West (Doghouse, Evil Aliens), Ti West (The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers), Ben Wheatley (Down Terrace, Kill List), Adam Wingard (Pop Skull, A Horrible Way To Die). Whew, that's a lot of horror directors!

Here's an awesome teaser poster for The ABC's of Death that came with the press release:

It is up to each filmmaker to interpret the letter and word they are assigned to tell a deathly tale, from the accidental to murder most foul. The sum of these parts, from A to Z, will be The ABC's of Death. Obviously, there's 26-letters in the alphabet, so who will direct the 26th chapter? Well, a worldwide competition will be held to find an emerging new talent behind the camera to join the slew of aforementioned filmmakers. Production is slated to begin next month with an eye towards finishing the project by January of 2012 (which the producers point out will be exactly six months, six weeks and six days after the production start).

Producer Ant Thompson says, "This project was inspired by my young sons being introduced to the world through their ABC's books. The idea of subverting that format to reveal a study in all the dastardly and humorous ways a person can leave this world appealed on multiple levels. And it was somewhat fitting to learn that the earliest forms of the ABCs books actually did use fear of punishment to teach the young,” Honestly, this is one of the most original and exciting horror projects I've heard of in a long time, and I can't wait to see how it turns out. We'll definitely keep you updated on this. What do you guys think?

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