Writers: See above
You've all watched numerous films that consist of three (sometimes four) stories, but sure as heck you haven't seen twenty six different stories in one movie before! Apparently, some producer, whose name I forgot, came up with a brilliant idea to make some kind of horror alphabet - for each letter of the alphabet one short story whose title is a single word beginning with that letter. Each story was done by a different director - they were given only the letter and the title and of course the story were entirely up to them.
Good thing about this concept is that stories follow one another so rapidly that the movie hardly ever gets boring. The bad thing - well, it's not the fault of the concept, but the fact is that today it's hard to find twenty six (or even six) good horror directors to fill the space. Of course, it's impossible to please everyone - I could bitch about the absence of Alexandre Aja, David Bruckner, Marcus Dunstan, Darren Lynn Bousman, Hideo Nakata etc., but on the other hand I have to be pleased with the presence of Yoshihiro Nishimura and Ti West (even though he failed miserably). Even if some of them were present, there's no guarantee that they wouldn't have failed miserably like Ti West.
OK, anyway, on to the movie itself. I won't even try to describe each story separately (I've forgotten most of them, anyway), so just a few general remarks: The quality in general is below average and the lack of good ideas is horrifying. There are no vampires, werewolves, Japanese long haired scary ghosts (even though at least four or five directors are Japanese), or even ghosts of any kind, no decent (post)apocalyptic story (even though the first one is titled A is for Apocalypse) etc. What have we instead? Two stories are actually meta-movies about their directors' lack of inspiration, at least three of them heavily feature toilets, one is about farting (directed, not surprisingly, by Noboru Iguchi), one contains masturbation competition (this one is actually well done, but it's sick beyond words), one about (and titled) orgasm, many other aren't even horror and... you get the idea. If "toilet humor" is an appropriate term to describe most of today's comedies, then "toilet horror" is sure fighting for its place in our favorite genre.
The style and quality vary considerably, there are "normal" stories, some of them are animated, one contains stop motion animation, some (like O is for Orgasm) are so heavily stylized that it's hard to tell what the hell's going on, some feature traditional Japanese bloodbath insanity, but it's all at best watchable and hardly anything will make you go "Wow!", except...
... for better or worse, there is a story called D is for Dogfight, directed by Marcel Sarmiento (previously known for Deadgirl, which was an OK movie with an interesting idea, but not terribly spectacular), which is so above everything else story-wise and execution-wise that it's simply unbelievable. It's like putting Akira Kurosawa next to Kevin Smith. The story is about some guy, obviously a prisoner of some kind, who is forced to fight with a particularly vicious dog. Some nasty people are watching, placing bets, etc. So, the fight starts, the dog is biting the man, the man is hitting the dog, you know, standard stuff, and then... something clicks between the two of them and we have what's pretty damn close to a best ending ever. I was literally overwhelmed with joy and wanted to kiss Sarmiento (in a totally non-gay way, of course) on the forehead. Story aside, you simply won't believe how well this was made. Shot almost entirely in slow motion, it features probably the most realistic man-animal fight scenes ever, with close-ups of dogs teeth biting the man's flesh, but also of the dog's head being hit by the man, all of which will probably make you extremely uncomfortable for all the right reasons. Moreover, without a single spoken word, the story will make you feel sympathy for both the man and the dog, which makes the ending even more brilliant.
So, what's the problem? Well, the stories go in alphabetic order, so this one is the fourth from the beginning. That means that after something that's probably one of the best short movies ever made, something so seriously and professionally devised and executed, after that glimpse of brilliance you have to sit through twenty two mostly lame half-assed uninspired attempts. It would have been better if Sarmiento hadn't been there to remind us what the true greatness looks like.
