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.
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.