ABCs of Death 2 comes to theaters on October 31, and with it comes 26 awesomely devilish short films directed by 26 different filmmakers that are based on letters from the alphabet. First up to bat is A is for Amateur, directed by E.L. Katz (Cheap Thrills), about a professional hit man who's anything but professional. "I like movies about stupid people who think that they're brilliant," Katz told Fandango when we sat down with him following the film's premiere at Fantastic Fest. "There's always some level of misguided protagonist who thinks he's got everything figured out and causes a lot of mayhem." Check out the official trailer and read on for more.

Fandango: How does this whole thing work? Do you pick a letter and run with it?

E.L. Katz: You can request a letter, but I didn't request because I thought it'd be fun to be surprised. Then they gave me 'A' and I was like, 'Oh no!' There's tons of pressure, man! Cheap Thrills was the only movie I had ever directed, and this was the second thing I had ever directed. Now it was gonna open this movie, and if it's bad, it's gonna bum everybody out!

Fandango: Your short is called A is for Amateur. What's something you've never attempted that you'd love to do once, even though you'd probably screw it up?

Katz: Riding a motorcycle. I'd probably crash it, but it seems exciting. My dad rode a motorcycle when he was younger and he got in this really horrible accident once, and he always fed me all these awful horror stories. So I have a weird relationship with motorcycles. 


A scene from A is for Amateur

 

Fandango: Since all you have is a letter to work off of, did you come up with a ton of different ideas?

Katz: Oh yeah, it was hard -- I jumped through so many different ideas. There was several months of coming up with ideas. 

 

The Four Craziest Ideas E.L Katz Did Not Attempt for ABCs of Death 2

Idea #1: I was gonna do a spoof of those Levi's ads. You know the ones -- where they have hipsters running around...and then [in my version] somehow they were gonna get acid on them and melt.

Idea #2: I had this science fiction one that would've ended up costing like a million dollars, but then director Nacho Vigalondo wound up doing the exact same idea for V/H/S. So it's good that I didn't do some smaller, cruddier version.

Idea #3: A Is for Alternate Dimensions!

Idea #4: This was a completely impossible large-scale version of the [short I ultimately filmed], where there's a huge warehouse party and there were ropes. The ventilation shaft was going to come off the wall and crush somebody. It was so impossible -- I would've really messed myself up if I tried the big Michael Bay version.

 

Fandango: When did you first fall in love with the horror genre?

Katz: It was Halloween night, I was around 12 years old, and I went with my dad to see this punk band. Playing behind the band was Dawn of the Dead, and I remember this mixture of hearing punk rock and seeing the craziest gory scenes in Dawn of the Dead was just so powerful. I was like, 'What is this movie? This movie seems impossible. I've never seen something like this before -- I've never seen these things happen to the human body.' It just felt so dangerous, and that was my thing.

 

Fandango: It's October, and you've been tasked with programming a Halloween movie marathon. What movies do you choose?

Katz: Things that have a little bit of humor and a lot of gore. Stuff you can just chill out and watch one after another. That's what I like in a movie marathon.

 

E.L. Katz's Halloween Movie Marathon

The Return of the Living Dead (1985) -- "I like this one quite a bit."

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) -- "I might surprise them with this one. I really love that movie."

Zombie (1979) and/or The Beyond (1981) -- "Yeah, maybe what this night needs is a Lucio Fulci film. Just like a gross night of fun, which is what it should be for Halloween."

 

ABCs of Death 2 opens in limited release October 31.