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.

As is the case with many low-budget horror films released numerous times with different cuts and ratings in various different continents, Joe D'Amato's Absurd is known under a wealth of alternative titles. Also known as Horrible, Rosso Sangue and Monster Hunter, the film was labelled as too gruesome for British audiences in the 1980's and found itself on the dreaded Video Nasty List. The most bizarre title to make its way onto its VHS cover is Anthropophagus 2, although the film has little in common with D/Amato's Anthropopogus: The Grim Reaper apart from the lead casting of George Eastman as yet another impossibly strong man-mountain with a fondness for gruesome murder.

The film begins with Mikos (Eastman), a beast of a man with an unnaturally fast healing factor, fleeing a priest. As he tries to escape by scaling a fence, Mikos is impaled on the railing spikes which disembowel him. It is while at the hospital that the doctors discover his amazing ability to heal, but he is soon on the loose after murdering a nurse. The madman is eventually hit by a car driven by Mr. Bennett (Ian Danby), who flees the scene and returns to his wife, son, and bed-ridden daughter Katia (Katya Berger). The family soon finds themselves under attack from Mikos, while police officer Sgt. Engleman (Charles Borromel) and the priest (Edmund Purdom) attempt to hunt down the rampaging savage.

Apart from a couple of entertainingly gory murders (a buzzsaw to the temple and a head in the oven are particular 'highlights'), Absurd suffers from some serious pacing issues. As the story bobbles around between the various characters having inane conversations, the film becomes incredibly boring and short of action. It's debatable as to whether Anthropophagus (1980) or Absurd takes the prize for the most tedious 90 minutes, but I feel that Absurd just edges it. Although Eastman does little more than stumble around with a crazy look in his eyes, he certainly has a presence, but here he is given a disappointingly short amount of screen time. By the time the climax finally arrives, it plods on and on as Katia is forced to learn to walk again to escape the bogeyman, which does not make for exciting viewing. Absurd, indeed.

Unsettling , sensationalistic and loathing Joe D'Amato picture with plenty of blood , gore and guts . Antropophagus II or Absurd or Rosso sangue (1981) is a sordid and scary explotaition movie that packs inexplicable disturbing occurrences , shocks, thrills , suspense , chills , hair-rising events and extremely gory final . Stars Mikos Stenopolis (George Eastman) , is a nutty man escaped from a hospital and undertaking a criminal spree . Along the way a priest-doctor (Edmund Purdom) hunting the man who has recently escaped from a medical lab, reaches a small town where the mutant continues his cannibalist massacre . He's. ...He's coming for you .Brutal ...Shocking! ...Violent! ...Savage! ...Not for the squeamish! .A Classic Gore Fest! Pray you survive the hunt. They rip out your fear and feed on it ! . Death awaits those who trespass in the realm of the living dead . It's not fear that tears you apart...it's him!

This scary and disagreeable movie is filled with some genuine fright , horror and doom. A sinister and unsettling flick that goes on growing more and more and developing little by little until the really gory finale . Thunderously overwhrought pile of Grand Guignol horror and displaying a lot of slaughter , mayhem , sickening images, stabbing , beheading and anything else . It is one of the nastiest , sleaziest and most brutal gore flicks ever produced in Italy . Including several women suffering grim , terrible and gory comeuppances and leaving nothing to the imagination . The plot is well known , plain and simple : a man has extraordinary amazing powers in Michael Myers and Jason style and making his angry could prove to be deadly with cannibalistic wishes . A familiar -but dull at times- script full of shocks, screams and surprises by writer/producer/actor Luigi Montefiori or George Eastman , giving a remarkable presence as the giant ghastly-looking dead man with supernatural regenerative abilities carrying out a killing spree , as he enhanced everything he was in and especially this role as a disfigured cannibalistic serial killer . Passable special effects , with special mention for the scenes of the girl burning in the oven . It's a better sequel to ¨Antrophofagus I¨dealing with a group of American students (Tisa Farrow , Saverio Vallone , Serena Grandi , Zora Kerova , among others) vacationing on a Greek island and with some really disturbing scenes of the pregnant woman comes up and as she's being strangled by the killer and her fetus is ripped out of her , here Tisa Farrow learns of the twisted cannibalistic murderer who methodically kills tourists and locals at the creepy island. This ¨Absurd¨resulting to be an exercise in pure depravity and regularly made by Aristide Massaccesi , now referring to himself as Joe D'Amato, he entered the "gore" genere films with Buio Omega (1979), which remains his most successful horror film, shot in four weeks on a low budget , while this ¨Absurd¨ was entirely filmed at Fiano Romano, Rome, Lazio, Italy and which had a thrilling and stinging music soundtrack by Carlo Maria Cordio . This Antrophofagus II (1981) was less successful than the previous one, ¨Gomia¨, but it's better made than Antrophofagus I (1980) . The film is well starred by Lui Montefiori the star of Antrophofagus and other gore genre flicks , being accompanied by other familiar faces who played in several Italian B-films , such as : Annie Belle , Charles Borromel , Katya Berger , Michele Soavi ,Ted Rusoff and Edmund Purdom.

The motion picture was middilngly directed by hack director Joe D'Amato or Aristide Massaccessi . This artisan was a prolific cameraman/writer/producer/director who made all kinds of genres . His first directing work was in 1972's low-budget Scansati... a Trinità arriva Eldorado (1972), co-directed by Diego Spataro, under the pseudonym Dick Spitfire, but it was a commercial failure. As he directed hardcore , soft-core, erotic films starring Laura Gemser, such as Emmanuel and francois (1975), Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977), Emanuelle in América (1977), Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade (1978), Erotic Nights of the Living dead , L'alcova (1985) . Gialli and Terror movies : Gomia or that he directed as "Peter Newton", Hitcher in the dark , Death Smiles on a Murderer , Buio Omega . Scifi and Sword-witchery : Ator , Ator l'invincibile, Ator 3 , 2020 Texas Rangers , Bronx Endgame, and many others . Rating : 4.5/10 . Average terror movie , it isn't apt for squeamish.