Between now and the closing film of the Toronto International Film Festival on September 16th, Killer Reviews will be highlighting some of the films that will have screenings at the prestigious event and giving you some insight into some of the more lesser known movies that being showcased in Canada.

Today, we take a look at The ABC’s of Death

The idea behind The ABC’s of Death is a brilliant one. Get 26 directors to make 26 short films, each one an individual chapter for each letter of the alphabet. Brilliant – really.

The first goal was to get some familiar directors signed and that was done with ease. Having inclusion in the experiment were Ti West (House of the Devil), Timo Tjahjanto (Macabre), Andrew Traucki (The Reef), Yudai Yamaguchi (Meatball Machine), Xavier Gens (Frontiers), Noburu Iguchi (Machine Girl), Marcel Sarmiento (Deadgirl) and Kaare Andrews (Altitude).

There is some real talent showcased here and each one was assigned a letter to which will be the focus point of their short.

From the TIFF Official Program Guide:

Step right up and witness twenty-six ways to die, courtesy of the world’s masters of horror! Spanning fifteen countries and enlisting the talents of over two dozen leading genre filmmakers, The ABCs of Death might just be the most ambitious horror anthology ever conceived. Consisting of twenty-six individual chapters, one for each letter of the alphabet, this alphabetical arsenal of gruesomely inventive deaths will leave audiences reeling.

Each segment of this compendium of carnage is helmed by a different director, who was allowed to pick the manner of death corresponding to their randomly assigned letter. Casting the creative net even wider, the producers let fans and audiences have a say in the making of the film: the letter T was reserved for the filmmaker who received the most votes from the public following an open call for entries (the winner was British director Lee Hardcastle, for his shudder-inducing stop-motion film T is for Toilet). You’ll gasp and shriek at a plethora of executions, both everyday and exotic: Japanese schoolgirl farts, man versus dog, a Russian roulette game of sexual pleasures, psychedelic apocalypses, frying pans and kitchen knives, full-body skin peels, samurai decapitations, janitorial fetishes — and who gets stuck with the letter Q?

A continent-crossing survey that displays the incredible diversity and fiendish inventiveness of the contemporary international horror scene, The ABCs of Death is provocative, shocking, and deadly funny. Don’t miss the genre-movie event of the year!

The ABC's of Death plays at the Festival on Friday, September 14th at midnight and again on Saturday afternoon at 3:15.