The ABCs of Death 2013

Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times: At its best when merging shocks with social commentary, this halting compilation improves significantly as it nears the end of the alphabet. Read more

Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: It's a feast for fans of the genre and a guaranteed ordeal for everyone else. Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: Most are rushed exercises in telegraphic storytelling, struggling to make a point, or at least find a punchline, in a bare few minutes. Read more

Ethan Gilsdorf, Boston Globe: Some shorts are four-star material, others incomprehensible and disgusting. The sum total is a cinematic abecedary that barely gets a passing grade. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: Has no shortage of inventive, ironic and gruesome sketches, but the novelty of its successes just barely outweighs its stillborn stuff. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: There are just too many stories to fit into two hours - and even with fewer weak links, The ABCs of Death might have fallen short all the same. Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: Most are exercises in sickening bad taste, with an emphasis on human bodily functions. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: An enormously impressive and massively indulgent cornucopia of 26 short films from all over the world. Read more

Nigel Floyd, Time Out: Gives a sense of horror movie making learned by rote - at a boy's school where girls have been admitted under sufferance. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Mainly ... these chapters dull with tiresome bloodletting and winks to a nonexistent sense of irony ... Read more

Rob Nelson, Variety: The ABCs of Death is an appallingly bad concoction of disgusting shorts that run through the alphabet but really should've stopped at "A." Read more

Mark Holcomb, Village Voice: What's unexpected is how thoroughly The ABCs of Death's ample duds overshadow its treasures, and how uninspired it feels as a whole. Read more