Horrible

I first saw this in the mid 80s on a vhs. Revisited it recently on YouTube. The quality is fine n it is totally uncut. Eastman once again plays a killer but this time he ain't no cannibal but a product of scientific experiment gone wrong in which he turns into an invincible nutjob who can heal itself n somehow makes weird snorting voices towards the end. Compared to Anthropophagus, this film is fast paced with lots of gory kills. Comparison to Halloween is inevitable, acting n editing wise it is horrendous. The short hair blonde is cute but her death sequence is terrifying. The nurse's drill scene made me squirm.

I just managed to sit through "Rosso Sangue" aka "Absurd" aka "Antropophagus II" aka "Horrible" (add to those about 10 other aka-titles -- surely this should already tell you we're not dealing with an excellent picture here).

So D'Amato delivers a straight-up horror movie this time. Is it any good? Barely. It is a relaxing film, though. Because between the handful moments of gore, you'll have plenty of time to doze off & catch a nap since there's hardly anything going on.

The mighty George Eastman wrote the script and I'm sure it must have read a little something like this when he handed it over to his buddy D'Amato: "I say nothing in this film, I'm indestructible and I kill everybody". Now you just figure out how to turn this into a movie, Joe.

And so did Joe, being the talented man that he is. Also, some distributors tried to market this as a sequel to D'Amato's "Antropophagus" aka "The Grim Reaper". But it's not. Just because Eastman looses his intestines again in this film, doesn't make it a sequel.

D'Amato pretty much turned it into a plain slasher flick. In a way, "Absurd" is like John Carpenter's "Halloween", only with Eastman's evil bearded face to scare you instead of a masked Michael Myers and without the likable Jamie Lee Curtis to root for. Eastman escapes a hospital, kills his way through a whole town, eventually ending up in some house to do some more killing. All this while a priest & a cop are on his trail, blabbering on about Eastman's character being some ultimate creature of evil. So, it's more or less the same movie. Plus, it's a lot worse too, of course. Still, as far as slashers go, there are also a lot worse out there.

Now I was under the impression that this was supposedly one of the goriest & most demented horror efforts ever to come out of Italy. Sadly, it's not all that exciting. There's a handful of gory scenes, yes (drill through the head, saw through the head, etc.) and they are amusing to watch, but nothing we haven't seen before. All the rest of the film, is just plain dullness I'm afraid. The climax features a blinded Eastman (his eyes stabbed out) versus a physically disabled teenage girl. You can imagine how exciting them two stumbling about in a darkened mansion turns out to be. The ending tries to be shocking, but it's basically just a happy end.

I remember once being impressed with "Beyond The Darkness" aka "Buio Omega". Maybe I should re-watch it to see if it still holds up well, because D'Amato is rapidly loosing some filmmaker credit with the stuff I've recently seen by him.

This cult film is both the follow-up to Joe D'Amato's notorious shocker 'Antropophagus', and one of the nastier films on the DPP 'Video Nasty' list. Those two facts alone will give many fans of cult horror reason enough to see it, and I'm pleased to say that the rest of the film isn't bad either; and while it's not quite as great as D'Amato's earlier film, Absurd plays out well as an overly gory slasher flick. Of course, you can't expect things like great acting and a plausible story line going into a film like this, and rather unsurprisingly; this film has neither. However, what it does have is a great gritty atmosphere, which is bathed in a scintillating soundtrack that succeeds in making the thrill scenes more exciting. The plot is silly in the extreme, but is somehow easy to buy as we follow a priest who travels to a small town on the trail of a supposed monster, who is currently lying on a hospital bed. The doctors are baffled to learn that his blood clots far faster than normal and this somehow makes him immortal. It's not long before the monster awakes and, naturally, goes on a killing spree.

George Eastman takes the lead role again and just as it did in Antropophagus; his imposing presence provides the film's main standout, despite him basically marauding around rather than actually acting. Obviously, the most important thing about this film for many will be the gore; and overall I'd say it just about tops Antropophagus. It was only two scenes that made the earlier film such a notorious shocker, and while there aren't a great number of highly nasty scenes here; they're more common and the film is more violent on the whole. Sequences involving a drill, a table saw and a severed head are among the best scenes in the movie. Director Joe D'Amato receives a lot of criticism, and while some of it is deserved; it has to be said that he has elevated this film over and above what you would expect of a grisly slasher. The atmosphere is superb, while the locations are well used and selected - and best of all, the director clearly knows how to build suspense; as the last twenty minutes of this film are truly gripping...and that's not bad at all considering that the characters are impossible to care for. Overall, anyone seeing this film will know not to expect great things - but its well worth seeing for the Video Nasty fan, and overall I'd say it's almost on par with the first film.

It's no Anthropophagus, but it's still worth a watch.

If Anthropophagus is a symphony of terror than Absurd is more like chamber music. It's a smaller cast. The majority of the horror takes place in one house. This has a more claustrophobic feel than Anthropophagus. Also, you get to know the characters better here which is nice.

This killer lacks the intensity of the madness from Anthropophagus. But there is at least one violent scene that's sure to grab your attention. It's worth checking out.

MONSTER HUNTER is the HALLOWEEN-esque 'sequel' to 1981's insomniac's dream ANTHROPOPHAGOUS. This time around D'Amato brings to us a sense of pace, making Monster Hunter much more enjoyable. The added gore (including an ultra-torturous scene involving an oven) and cool electronic music score is a nice bonus (I caught some music from PIECES in here as well...cool). The story (or lack thereof) brings back George Eastman as our favorite cannibal, this time not on a Greek island, but somewhere in the US being hunted by a priest (of all people). During this, he somehow manages to spill his guts (again, but does not eat them) on an iron fence outside a house. Eastman is taken to a nearby hospital. There, he recovers, kills the doctor (gorily too I might say), hacks up a few others and then returns to the house where he had his 'accident', and proceeds to stalk the babysitter and kids residing there. A bit boring at times (aren't all these italo-gore flix?) but Eastman's presence is over powering and the end involving a 'vegetable' overcoming her disabilities to face the beast is fairly ironic.