Darkweasel Recently, I've been trying to catch up on all the "Video Nasties" I never got a chance to see when I was younger. This time out we have the sort of unofficial sequel to Anthropophagous - The Beast. I say unofficial because there's no actual continuation of the story here, it just happens to have been directed by the same guy (one man Italian movie conveyor belt Joe D'Amato), and written by the rather large George Eastman who also plays the hulking great monsters in both films.So, in Absurd, we start with big George running away from a man in a black coat. Trying to escape over a pointy metal gate, he winds up being impaled on the spikes with his guts dribbling out of his tummy. After being taken to hospital, he undergoes surgery on something that looks like an overcooked sausage, and the doctor notes that the big man can quickly heal himself, effectively making him immortal. Well, that's handy isn't it. Oh, but he can be killed if you destroy/remove his brain. Not quite so handy.Anyway, after a quicker than average recuperation period for someone recently wearing his insides as a fashion accessory, ungrateful George kills a nurse by drilling a hole into into her head and then, for reasons best known to himself, heads back to the house where his intestines made a bid for freedom, killing anybody that gets in his way. A priest trying to be Donald Pleasence in Halloween tries to track him down, an old cop tries to help but doesn't really do a lot, and the married couple who live in the house are out watching an American football game at a neighbour's place, leaving their curly headed little boy and their invalid daughter alone with the babysitter and a sister with a baffling and intermittent Irish accent.Although Absurd isn't brilliant, it's gore scenes are better than most low budget horror films (the band saw to the head, and pick axe through the head scenes are quite impressive), and there are some quite suspenseful scenes in the latter half of the film. Unfortunately, a lot of those scenes are ruined by an over-insistent Halloween inspired theme tune obliterating much of the tension, replacing it with a mild irritation and an aversion to keyboard driven soundtracks. It's also quite fun to see, from the film's more than obvious nods to Halloween, how it seems that in turn the makers of Friday the 13th Part IV took their influence from Absurd. The indestructible killer begins his rampage in a hospital, moves to the woods, and then ends up in a house and a final battle with a vulnerable child.Where I've struggled to see why some of the other films I've watched were banned by the BBFC in the '80s, it's not too difficult to see why they didn't respond well to Absurd. It's not the nastiest thing you'll ever see (although the "acting" by the kid might very well be), but there's enough in it to see why it would have caused the censors back then a bit of concern."There's something I have to tell you". "Okay. I'm all ears". "It's about Thelma Gardelli up at the hospital. I'm afraid she was brutally murdered by that man we were operating on this morning".

markcope1981 I really thought this was great the film is a knock off of Halloween 1 and 2 the film is about katia her brother willy and her are left with 2 babysitters meanwhile a maniac is loose with a priest on his trail the two ideas become one from Halloween 1 we have a babysitter in peril the boogeyman who cant die from 2 we have the climax and the hospital scene I love this knock off of a film we have a great gore axe in head drill in head and the oven scene is this films fetus scene ala antrophagus katia is invalid and gained my instanant sympathy I didn't like her brother a whiny tommy doyle clone the babysitters are good overall good great film

Boba_Fett1138 Well, story-wise this is just a very weak. Funny enough it got written by George Eastman, the man who plays the killer in this movie and it's predecessor "Antropophagus".Yes, despite the many titles this movie is known under, this movie is still really being a sequel to the 1980 movie "Antropophagus", which also got directed by Joe D'Amato. "Antropophagus" was truly one of the nastiest movies I've ever seen because of two very memorable gory moments. While this movie is also being gory and got banned at many countries at the time of its release, it's lacking really in the atmosphere and memorable moments of the original movie.This is not really an horror, it's merely a movie with some gory sequences in it. The movie never gets tense and it will never scare you in any way. Still for the fans of video nasties this remains a good watch, especially if you want to see more after watching "Antropophagus". The movie does really feature some gory moments and original nasty killings in it.The movie mostly remains watchable because it features the same maniacal killer as the original did. He's just one of those great genre characters that can really make a movie work out, even when everything else about the movie is done quite poorly.Just some good simple old fashioned Italian nasty fun.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Bloomer A monster (read - Homicidal Man) with regenerative powers that are 'absurd' - IE stab him and it won't stop him, you have to completely mash his brain to do that - goes on a minor rampage in a small American town.This film almost sent me to sleep at times. I don't believe that Joe D'Amato was much of a director, just prolific. When he does make films I like (EG - Buio Omega, Anthrophagus), I'm tempted to thank mostly his persistence with exploitatively gory subject matter. For every half-decent film he's made, he's also made two more that sucked, and that isn't a good batting average. There's not even much consensus on his good films. I'm a fan of Anthropophagus, but I know for a fact that it bores a lot of people, and I can understand why. In any case, Absurd is just too obnoxiously stupid and uneven to earn much of a place in my heart, no matter how blitzkriegy its violence.D'Amato seems to have had no overview of his films before piecing them together. In Absurd, soporific longeurs are broken up by overblown murder set-pieces. The killings are undoubtedly nasty (bandsaw through the head, axe in the head, head in the oven, etc.) but the director offers so little explanation as to why/how these killings occur that the film doesn't feel horrifying, just ridiculous. George Eastman is competently creepy as the monster, but we know almost nothing about his character, and he goes out of his way to kill each victim in the gruesomest way he can, no matter how impractical that course of action might be. My main reaction to this approach was laughter. Every now and then I caught myself liking the film's brutality, but so often it's just boring, stupid or silly, limply structured - annoying.The film may end up being memorable for not very good reasons, but the reality is that it's pretty crap.