In a macabre play on children’s educational alphabet books, upcoming film project ABC’s of Death will bring 26 directors together in one brilliantly twisted feature horror anthology. As announced at Cannes last week, each director will be assigned a letter for his/her short film entry, and each thematic chapter of the anthology will teach audiences about death in brilliant and twisted ways.
Twenty directors from all over the world have already signed on, from established names to controversial up-and-comers. The 26th director will be “discovered” as part of an international competition, details to be announced. A Serbian Film director Srdjan Spasojevic is on board, as is Jason Eisener of Hobo with a Shotgun, Ti West of The Innkeepers, Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel of DeadGirl, actress-turned-director Angela Bettis of Roman, and Adrian Garcia Bogliano of Cold Sweat.
It’s no surprise that the cinematic entertainment and pop culture geniuses behind the Alamo Drafthouse Theater franchise are partly responsible for this film concept. Tim League of Drafthouse Films and Ant Timpson of Timpson Films will be producing ABC’s of Death, along with Magnet Releasing (handling international sales).
League credits the Alamo Drafthouse’s genre film festival, Fantastic Fest, as a source for producers to discover and get in touch with creative and visionary filmmakers from all over the world. He said the feature length anthology will pack more “jaw-dropping moments than the whole summer of blockbusters.“
Timpson added this about the concept of the film, “This project was inspired by my young sons being introduced to the world through their ABCs 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.”
Production will begin this coming June, and completion is planned for January 2012; exactly 6 months, 6 weeks and 6 days later. For a full list of directors already signed on, check out the official website.
