ridiculous rating

It is a performances centric movie

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

The concept was interesting, but having so many stories mean they're short. Some stories worked well, but others were terrible. Some come off as some kind of weird soft porno, while others are stupid. The handful of stories that were good are worth watching. It's just too bad that you have to sit through the weaker, stupid stuff to view them. The titles of the alphabet stories appear at the end and, frankly, some of the titles were really stretching it. In this type of collection, I would expect some humor or irony. This was not so. I particularly enjoy the one for W because it was creative and funny. Some stories are in different languages, so there are some subtitles, but not too much. I don't mind subtitles. I wish I could give it a higher score, but the bad bits were really that bad. I won't discourage people and say don't see it. As long as you know what you're in for, go for it. I've seen worse.

This was a re-watch for me — the first time was closer to when the anthology was first released — and I definitely enjoyed it, possibly more than most. It consists of 26 different short films from actors spanning 15 different countries, and the only common theme is death.I think it's to be expected that any anthology, but especially one with over 20 installments, is going to be an exercise in hit or miss. Even if you had a line-up of directors and actors with decades of experience, you'd still have some shorts that didn't quite come together… and many of the people involved in these are new to the game. The good news for someone like me with a relatively short attention span is that each short is exactly that — short. It has a total runtime of 129 minutes so each film is an average of 5 minutes long… easy enough to sit through one that doesn't really work. I think the interesting thing — aside from getting a taste of each directors' style — was how differently the theme of death was interpreted. Some went the classic scary route, some went more cerebral, some went funny… literal vs abstract, gritty vs neat. It's a fascinating, brief look into their brain, which is cool no matter the context. It's also fun to watch the short and guess what the word is going to be!** SPOILERS! **There were a few that were interesting but not particularly gripping: Apocalypse (directed by Nacho Vigalondo) was an intense way to kick off the series; Gravity (directed by Andrew Traucki) was a neat little POV adventure; and Orgasm (directed by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani) was stylish and sleek.There were a few that made me want to see more… ones that worked well in their short timeframe but were intriguing enough to make me curious: Cycle (directed by Ernesto Díaz Espinoza) was a trippy mindfuck; Ingrown (directed by Jorge Michel Grau) was dark and intimate; Pressure (directed by Simon Rumley) played on the underbelly of desperation; Quack (directed by Adam Wingard) was just funny and clever; and Unearthed (directed by Ben Wheatley) was super engaging.Sadly a bunch were just straight up dumb: Bigfoot (directed Adrián García Bogliano, who is ALWAYS hit or miss for me); Exterminate (directed by Angela Bettis) played on the creepy crawly aspect of spiders but was just bad otherwise; Fart (directed by Noboru Iguchi) was just stupid beyond words; Hydro-Electric Diffusion (directed by Thomas Cappelen Malling) was physically repulsive for me; Miscarriage (directed by Ti West) was easily the laziest of the bunch; Nuptials (directed by Banjong Pisanthanakun) was pointless; Removed (directed by Srdjan Spasojevic) was just UGH; Speed (directed by Jake West) tried to be deep but failed; Vagitus (directed by Kaare Andrews) was one of the most technically impressive but terrible otherwise; WTF! (directed by Jon Schnepp) was intentionally a hot mess but so damn lazy); and Zetsumesu (Yoshihiro Nishimura) I just have no words for.A few went the funny route and did it well: Jidai-Geki (directed by Yudai Yamaguchi) was so bizarre; Klutz (directed by Anders Morgenthaler) was so good I want a whole show of it; and Toilet (directed by Lee Hardcastle) managed to be funny, bizarre, and surprisingly gory for claymation.A few were pretty well done but OVER THE TOP shocking: Libido (directed by Timo Tjahjanto) is impressive if for no other reason than its ability to shock at every single turn, and XXL (directed by Xavier Gens) is an intensely dark look at the diet and weight loss industry's impact on society.There were only two that I considered truly awesome: Dogfight (directed by Marcel Sarmiento) was easily the winner of the whole series for me – gripping, intense, gritty, clever, and well shot; and Young Buck (directed by Jason Eisener), just a bizarre adventure overall but weird enough for me to love it.Overall, well worth the two hours, and I'm super excited to watch the second series!

There are a few decent shorts buried in a tsunami of awfulness, which sadly aren't even good enough to justify watching this whole thing. A few are mildly creepy, most are just crude and gross. The only common aspect that unites this as a film is a general sense of filmmakers flailing around, desperately trying to find something to shock or repulse the viewer. Most of them settle for just throwing a few buckets of whatever body fluid they have handy at the viewer.I'll be honest, I only made it to "S" before giving up, but this was simply a piece of crap. Not even worth watching for the few OK films - sitting through all the bad ones is such a mind numbing and repulsive experience, you won't even remember them.

This was a good idea in theory, but in practice it was a borderline unwatchable train wreck. There were a couple of shorts that were actually good, but the majority were either not even remotely scary or just completely insane (and not in a good way).I tried to watch this with my friend. We gave up halfway through. She hates leaving movies unfinished, but we just couldn't finish this one while sober. A month later, we finished it while intoxicated. The level of intoxication required to finish this movie was rather high, and the movie was still terrible. We just didn't care anymore. I temporarily forgot how to walk, but I've never been more relieved in my entire life to be utterly wrecked.