Horrible

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.

Luigi Montefiori aka George Eastman is definitely one of the scariest movie villains I've ever seen. His sheer size alone just makes him creepy. He obviously doesn't mind being violent; it seems to come naturally to him. If you've ever seen Bava's "Rabid Dogs," you should know what I mean. His role in "Rosso Sangue" is no exception. He delivers the goods here.

Transformed into an unstoppable machine by an experiment gone awry, the bad guy makes his way through the countryside in search of his next victim. His next victim is basically anyone who gets in his way. He eventually lands at the home of a family and stalks them down.

For the gorehounds, there will be a lot to love here. The scene with the band saw was sweet. For the lovers of Italian shock, there will be little we haven't seen before, but it is still worth a viewing.

Ultimiately, this one could have been as triumphant as "Buio Omega" if there had been a few added killings. There are really only a handful. I wish there had been twice as many. I would have given this one at least a nine.

Aficionados of Italian horror soundtracks will recognize a few of the tunes from other flicks.

Worthy of a viewing for fans of D'Amato. Also recommend, if you like this one: "Tenebre," "Anthropophagus: The Grim Reaper," and of course "Beyond the Darkness." 7 out of 10, kids.

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.

Joe D'Amato and George Eastman's follow-up to the notorious "The Grim Reaper" (Antropophagus) is sick, twisted and – oh yes – deliciously absurd! There's no real story and the amount of genuine chills is limited, but the gory murder sequences are sensational and they easily rank among the craziest stuff ever caught on film. Eastman once again portrays a Greek psycho-killer, though a different one than the fetus-munching monster in Antropophagus (love that title!), cheerfully butchering half the population of a small American town. Nikos isn't your ordinary madman, but a scientific guinea pig whose blood coagulates much faster and hence he instantly recovers from severe wounds, like gunshots or impalement. He's pursued by an unintelligible priest, a chain-smoking copper and his black assistant who isn't allowed to talk without permission. No wonder none of these blokes is capable of catching or even tracing Nikos and the body count increases immensely. Whenever George isn't barbarically killing someone using band saws, surgical devices or axes, "Absurd" is rather dull, slow-moving and borrowing story ideas as well as direct quotes from John Carpenter's landmark slasher Halloween. There's babysitters in peril, young kids spotting the bogeyman everywhere around the house and dangerous killers escaping from hospital beds. Still, if you're looking for really good horror cinema, just wait for the climax which is quite suspenseful and it makes the popular title "Absurd" all the more meaningful.

A priest is pursuing a madman who,the victim of a genetic experiment,has become a homicidal killer with blood that coagulates very quickly,making him virtually indestructible.The killer goes on the rampage in a small town.This ultra-gory sequel to Joe D'Amato's "Antropophagus" is very slow and boring at times but has also some creepy moments plus plenty of very strong violence and gore.The bandsaw killing is ten times nastier than the similar drill scene in Lucio Fulci's "City of the Living Dead".The gore flows freely resulting in a film that is simultaneously repellent and extremely funny.Highly recommended.