The ABCs of Death 2 gets a short but perfectly formed run at the Rio Theatre this weekend (November 1-3). In his brief review of the anthology film, in which 26 of the best new genre filmmakers base a short film around a letter of the alphabet, the Straight’s Adrian Mack singled out “W Is for Wish” as his favourite.

Directed by Manborg auteur, Astron-6 alumnus, and all-around weirdo Steven Kostanski, “W Is for Wish” begins as a hilarious parody of an ‘80s toy commercial, until the two little tykes who star are sucked into the actual gameworld of Zorb, Fantasy Man, and the heroically buff Prince Cassio, whose first words to them are “We’re dead! We're all fuckin' dead!!”

It’s genius. The Straight caught Kostanski at his private fantasy universe in Toronto for a brief chat.

Georgia Straight: In my capsule review I called your segment the best one.

Steven Kostanski: Aw, thanks.

GS: Am I correct?

SK: Well, I can’t say that! Personally, I think Z is the best one, but that’s just me.

GS: Z is amazing. What do you like about it?

SK: Well, I dunno, I don’t wanna get into picking favourites, or stuff. I just like Z because I know Chris [Nash], and I know he put a ton of work into it, and I really think it came together and I’m kinda jealous about how unique and interesting it is. He does a really excellent job with it.

GS:  Okay, without picking a favourite, what are your thoughts overall on ABCS 2?

SK: I actually think it’s a pretty solid movie. I’m not a huge fan of the first one. I think that one was pretty hit ‘n’ miss. I think with 2 everyone really upped their game. The quality is a lot higher. It feels like a lot classier product to me. 

GS: I know Manborg was based almost entirely on a glib comment made by [frequent collaborator] Jeremy Gillespie…

SK: Yes, we were watching Eliminators and he just off-handedly said, "You should make a movie called Manborg."

GS: And so you did. Can you tell me about the genesis of “W Is for Wish?”

SK: Again, it was another goofy conversation with Jeremy that spawned the whole thing. We were on a bus on the way back from somewhere, and he started talking about this idea he had for a fantasy universe. Him and I are big into Conan and He-Man, and those kinds of, like, ‘80s fantasy worlds. So he just came up with this character name, Zorb, and we just started throwing it into every sentence that followed. It just got sillier and sillier. So we kept that in our back pockets for a while and when I got asked to do ABCs 2, I knew immediately I wanted to do something fantasy related so we could take advantage of this universe that we kinda joked about. And coincidentally I had started roughly assembling some toys. The idea originally was just to make a goofy little toy line for this fake fantasy universe. For some reason we thought that would be easier than making a movie or a short, and it ended up being a ton of work. So I was in the middle of making these toys and when I got asked to do ABCs 2 I thought, ‘Well, Why don’t I combine everything and make a toy commercial that goes into this fantasy world,’ and yeah. It kinda took off from there.

GS: Can we infer that the two boys in the commercial are you and Jeremy?

SK: There’s no denying that. That’s us right now, pretty much.

GS: You told Fangoria, about Manborg, “I was trying to make the film I wanted to find when I was a kid but never found.” The same sentiment could be applied to "W Is for Wish", right? This is the toy line you never found.

SK: The toy line we never found and the scope of a fantasy universe that I only partially found. The short combines all the things I like about a certain ‘80s subgenre of movies. It’s very much a Charles Bandesque universe but also crossed with the Fulci movie, Conquest, which is his attempt at a fantasy movie. Conquest is the one where it’s, like, nothing but fog, there’s a guy named Mace who has nunchucks, and there’s a topless woman with a snake and she’s got a gold mask, and there’s that shape-shifter guy in armour. It has a very recognizable poster that’s way more epic than the movie actually is.

GS: You can watch the whole thing on YouTube.

SK: Jeremy and I came to the conclusion that it’s the only fantasy-horror movie that exists. Nobody’s really tried to tap into that sub sub-genre. Fantasy is usually supposed to be fun and adventure, and were, like, "But what about the nightmare side?" So many ideas in these universes are horrible and disturbing, why not take advantage of that? That’s what we tried to do with “W Is for Wish”. It’s a combination of fun, action movie-type stuff but also the nightmare world that Jeremy and I joked about and saw in Conquest, where it’s, like, "What’s the most horrible rendition of He-Man we could possibly imagine?"

GS: There’s also the predatory sexual menace.

SK: Well we felt like it wouldn’t really hit home unless we brought in a very real and tangible kind of fear. And it’s something that seems to have divided people. It starts out huge but then slowly degenerates into a far more disturbing reality of Fantasy Man being this, like, creepy pervert.

GS: Well, he’s called Fantasy Man…

SK: Yeah.

GS: I can’t say I was surprised that it went that way. But how do you plan on justifying this to people of higher moral and ethical fibre than you and I?

SK: The idea is that you can escape the guy with the mushrooms growing out of his head, and the guy shooting ghosts at people, but the thing that’ll get you is the very real terror of a guy who’s just a maniac. I guess that’s kind of the moral of the story.