Big George Eastman is severely injured while being chased by a priest. Guts in hand (literally!), he shows up at a house and then is taken to the hospital. While at the hospital, the surgical staff discover his blood clots quickly and that he heals at a much faster rate than a normal person. Eastman escapes, the priest pursues, and then we take a detour through a direct copy of Halloween before the movie ends.Absurd is often billed as a sequel to Anthropophagus but Eastman is the only real connection. The story is crazy, and there's lots of boring padding as we watch characters watch TV. However, gore scenes are what we're looking for here, and there are a few nice set pieces on display including a drill through a head and a bandsaw through a head. Apart from these few gore scenes, Absurd is pretty much a dull mess.

Another in the list of infamous banned Video Nasties, Absurd(or whatever you wish to call it) is in many ways similar to Halloween and Halloween 2(the originals--not the Rob Zombie visual abortions). Of course, you could say Halloween is a rip-off of Fright(1971) with more of the "babysitter-in-peril" theme being explored. However, Absurd only involves the babysitter(s) to any serious degree more than halfway through the film. In the meantime, we get a few of the best kills of the film, with hulking George Eastman sort-of reprising his role as an indestructible Greek man with rather unusual healing abilities.I enjoyed the score, though it got annoying at times. Something like Carpenter's score for Halloween, it was more akin to the intro music to the Incredible Hulk TV show with a repeating piano tidbit. The direction was adequate. I enjoy a lot of Joe D'Amato's work. Compared to it's sort-of predecessor, Anthropophagus, this film is actually tame. There are no scenes of fetus ripping or self-mastication. On that front, Anthropophagus really excels, but as story lines and pacing go, I feel Absurd was better. Oh, there are a few gratuitous scenes of a televised football game(and I was rather surprised they used the actual game's announcers instead of dubbing something else) that kill some time between scenes.Really, I only have a few beefs with this movie, overall. First, I didn't much care for the oven scene. It took forever! And it was a very sloppy way for a maniac to dispose of someone. And when she was stabbed with the shears, you don't get to see anything good. I was expecting a little more from Eastman's fight with the priest.The best moments, besides the kills, are during the "chase" sequence at the finale. This is probably the best part of the film.If you like Italian splatter films, hunt down this gem which has only just now become available on DVD under the title Horrible(one of many confusing titles, I assure you).

Absurd sees George Eastman as Mikos Stenopolis, an insane maniac who is capable of regenerating dead cells, a trick which renders him almost indestructible. As Mikos terrorises a small community, a determined priest (Edmund Purdom) and local cop Sgt. Ben Engleman (Charles Borromel) attempt to track him down and deal him the only way they know how: by destroying his brain.Despite its alternate moniker 'Anthropophagus 2', and the presence of the hulking George Eastman as a bloodthirsty monster, this film really has little in common with director Joe D'amato's other infamous nasty 'Anthropophagus', apart from the fact that it too earned itself a place on the official DPP list of films thanks to a whole heap of cheap and nasty gore.If anything, Absurd (AKA Horrible) bears more similarities to (ie., it rips off) John Carpenter's classic 'Halloween' stealing liberally from that film's plot and emulating its characters: Nikos is D'amato's Michael Myers (he is even referred to by a child as 'The Bogeyman'); Purdom's priest is this film's Dr. Loomis; and nurse Emily (Annie Belle) is Laurie Strode. As if that wasn't enough, Absurd also borrows musical cues from Carpenter's menacing Halloween theme.Of course, D'amato is nowhere near as adept at film-making as Carpenter, and fails to conjure up even a fraction of Halloween's atmosphere, scares and style; this means that, when the director isn't spilling entrails and splitting skulls, the film is extremely dull, with scenes unnecessarily drawn out to mind-numbing length. In fact, only the finalé—in which a blinded Eastman stumbles after a disabled girl—displays any kind of ingenuity or tension.

Absurd. Apt title. But, still a slasher flick which delivers some potent violence. A seemingly indestructible maniac, portrayed by George Eastman in street clothes, whose cells regenerate(..this also causes an abnormally sized brain which makes him insane)at an accelerated rate, is attacking innocent people without reason. Out to stop him is Greek priest, Edmund Purdom, who understands his unusual condition and knows his weakness..if you damage the brain, Eastman's a goner. After being impaled on a spiked gate attempting to escape priest Purdom, Eastman is taken to a hospital where he's considered a lost cause, until the startled surgical staff recognize his amazing recuperative abilities. Escaping from the hospital, after using a drill which pierces completely through the skull of his attending nurse, Eastman takes it to the road, killing several innocent bystanders he comes in contact with(..some poor soul sweeping who shoots Eastman three times almost point-blank before being hoisted onto a table, his skull penetrated by a band saw;and future director Michelle Soavi, whose motorcycle stalls, seeing if Eastman is alright after he's hit by a vehicle, being strangled for his efforts)along the way. The car which hits him is owned by Ian Danby and Eastman soon finds his house, the vehicle in the drive way but he and his wife gone..the bulk of the remaining screen time is devoted to Eastman terrorizing Danby's kids, and babysitters. Purdom joins forces with Charles Borromel(..as Sgt Ben Engleman)in their search for Eastman.The film's strengths are Eastman's towering menacing figure and the ultra-violence with a particularly unpleasant fate for poor Annie Bell. Along with the aforementioned carnage left in Eastman's wake, he uses a pick axe, burying it into the skull of the babysitter, forces another victim's head into an oven(..protracted, disturbing sequence as we watch her struggle to free herself as the director often shows us the flames rising, eventually seeing the girl's face starting to burn)finishing her off by slowly jabbing her in the throat with shears(..she had stabbed him multiple times in the neck, before he seized her), soon setting his sights for the kids, Kasimir Berger(..in a dreadful performance as the obnoxious boy child, Willy, who is told to get help, with the damn stupid kid not leaving, instead re-entering the house!)and Katya Berger(..as seemingly invalid Katia, neck brace, strapped in place to her bed due to a spinal condition). The final set-piece is rather effectively staged as we follow Katya's trying to remove her straps in order to free herself as other activities occur outside the room such as her guardian Emily(Belle)trying to defend the kids against the gargantuan Eastman and idiot brother Willy crying for safety(..if the dummy had sought after help as Emily had commanded, then he might not have forced her from the room to find him risking her own well being in the process!). I agree with others that director Aristide Massaccesi has issues with the pacing as the story and characters outside the violent attacks themselves are nothing to write home about. But, one idea, the bedridden Katia having to defend herself against Eastman(..actually gouging his eyes with a drawing compass, putting him at a disadvantage)once she unstraps herself, works beautifully as a form of building suspense, although it also goes on a bit long in the tooth. The showdown between Eastman and Purdom isn't exactly a showstopper, although how Katya settles the score with an ax is quite memorable. Being included on the Video Nasty list helped earn it a reputation, but the slow moving plot will alienate a great deal of those seeking a wall-to-wall gore film. When the violence erupts, however, Aristide Massaccesi delivers the goods in detail, pulling his camera right into the bloody carnage as the victim shrieks in horror. A tighter pace, absent the kid Willy, with less drawn out stretches which cause the viewer to look at his/her watch wondering when Eastman might strike next, would've made a difference. There's nothing particularly stylish or atmospheric about this film(..it certainly doesn't stand next to it's distant brother, ANTHROPOPHAGUS), in my opinion, and the characters aren't that interesting, but when Eastman emerges, it picks up considerably.