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.

Originally called Rosso Sangue (Red Blood),this movie is also known as Zombie 6: Monster Hunter, Horrible, The Grim Reaper 2 and Anthropophagus 2. This really has nothing to do with Anthropophagus (well, D'Amoto and Eastman were involved there, too and that movie ends with Eastman's guts all over the place and this one starts that way),as it's more of a Halloween ripoff. And I don't mean that as an insult.

Mikos Stenopolis George Eastman) starts the film as he's being chased by the Vatican priest (Edmund Purdom, of all people) who created him. So let's get this crazy set-up out of the way: a Greek monster who can't be killed because his blood coagulates very quickly was created by the Roman Catholic church somewhere and when that maniac escaped, he ended up in some small American town that only cares about the game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Los Angeles Rams, so I'm just going to assume that they're in New Castle or Zelienople.

The chase leads to a fence where Mikos is impaled. He makes his way to the front door of the Bennett house, holding his bloody guts as he passes out. He's revived in a local hospital - shades of Haddonfield Memorial - and escapes after murdering a nurse with a drill. This being an Italian film, that entire murder appears in great detail.

The priest - let's call him Father Loomis, cousin of the other Father Loomis in Prince of Darkness - informs that there's only one way to kill Mikos: destroy his cerebral mass.

Synchronicity rears its head when Mr. Bennett, in a hurry to get home and watch Terry Bradshaw thread the needle to Lynn Swann, hits Mikos with his car. He just keeps going. When he gets home, he's brusque with his wife and kids. Seems that his daughter, Katia, has a spinal condition and must stay in traction. All she wants to do is use a compass to continually draw the same drawing over and over again, while her brother Willy is obsessed that the Boogeyman is coming to kill him. Guess what, Willy? You're right.

Mikos spends the rest of the movie randomly killing anyone who gets in his way, like a young Michele Soavi playing a biker and a butcher who gets the top of his head sawed off. He finally makes his way to the house. Peggy is on her way to watch the kids when she gets a pickaxe to the head. And the other woman who was watching them? Well, she gets her head forced into a lit oven that bakes the flesh off of her face in an extended sequence before being stabbed in the neck with a pair of scissors.

Willy goes all Tommy Doyle and runs to get help while Katia finally frees herself from her bed. She stabs him in the eyes with her compass and leads the killer on a chase throughout the house, using loud music to distract him. The priest arrives and struggles with Mikos, just in time for Katia to chop off the killer's head with a ceremonial axe.

The police arrive late, but Katia assures her little brother that everything will be fine as the camera reveals that she is holding Mikos' bloody head.

Absurd inspired the German black metal band who took their name, who eventually went from watching gore films to killing people for real as their music went further and further into far right extremism.

Your enjoyment of this film will be colored by how much you like gore, how much you understand that Italian movies are often very hard to understand and how much you're willing to forgive a film. Personally, I loved it. The oven kill scene is really uncomfortable to watch and the gore is incredibly effective.

Severin Films has just re-released this film with all of their trademark quality and insanity. It's the first uncut release of the film in the U.S. and features an interview with Eastman and Soavi, as well as a bonus soundtrack CD. They've also rereleased Anthropophagus and also offer an amazing bundle that comes with pins of Niko and Joe D'Amoto, as well as a George Eastman stuffed doll. I love that Severin gives films as disreputable as these all the care and concern that Criterion would to a movie from a director much more esteemed and talented (but so much more boring).