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Absurd

Absurd

Movie · 1981 · 11 people

Absurd is a 1981 Italian slasher, an English-language horror picture whose original title, Rosso Sangue, translates as "blood red". It has also circulated as Anthropophagus 2, Zombie 6: Monster Hunter, Horrible and The Grim Reaper 2. Running about 93 minutes and produced by Filmirage, it sits where horror, science fiction and slasher conventions overlap, and its reputation rests largely on its brushes with censors and prosecutors.

George Eastman, who also wrote the story and screenplay, takes the lead. Edmund Purdom, Annie Belle, Cindy Leadbetter, Lucía Ramírez, Katya Berger and Michele Soavi appear alongside him, and Carlo Maria Cordio composed the score. Director Joe D'Amato also shot the film and co-produced it; he is also credited under the pseudonym Peter Newton.

The film counts as an unofficial sequel to D'Amato's heavily censored Antropophagus, and it is described as part sequel, part remake. In the US, Wizard Video released it as Monster Hunter, and a wrong blurb on the back of the box presented it for a time as the follow-up to an unrelated zombie series. In Britain it became one of the 39 "video nasties" successfully prosecuted in 1984 under obscene-publications law. Medusa Home Video's uncut 1981 edition is now an expensive collector's item.

DirectorJoe D'Amato
Production companyFilmirage

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George Eastman George Eastman Actor · died at 83 Mikos Stenopolis Edmund Purdom Edmund Purdom Film actor · 1924 – 2009 Father Annie Belle Cindy Leadbetter Lucía Ramírez Mark Shannon Michele Soavi Katya Berger Hanja Kochansky Ted Rusoff Carolyn De Fonseca

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Through different eyes

Action & Thriller Fan Puts pace, tension and set pieces first; little patience for slow drama.

For slasher fans the appeal of Absurd is obvious: a notorious film that got into real trouble with censors. But notoriety alone does not make a film tense. Being an unofficial sequel, described as part remake, suggests you should expect a familiar formula rather than an original story. Fans of the hard stuff may be curious; anyone after a well-paced horror film gets no guarantees.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

The first distinction to make with Absurd is this: when a film's fame comes from censorship cases, you have to ask separately what it is worth as cinema. Joe D'Amato directing, shooting and co-producing the film himself is a textbook case of the one-man production model of low-budget Italian genre filmmaking. George Eastman taking the lead while also writing the story and screenplay points to the same tight-crew approach. The overlap of horror, science-fiction and slasher conventions reads more like a stacking of genre elements than a synthesis, and being part sequel, part remake weakens any claim to an original film language. What is genuinely interesting is less the film itself than the history of how it circulated.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Absurd is more interesting as a document of its time than as a film. Its place among the 39 "video nasties" successfully prosecuted in Britain in 1984 under obscene-publications law lays bare the moral panic of the years when home video spread: the state was searching for a way to police a medium that reached straight into homes without passing through a cinema. The wrong blurb on the back of the American box shows how chaotically the video market of the day worked. And it is ironic that an uncut early edition is now an expensive collector's item: what was banned becomes, over time, an object that gains value. The film itself adds little to these debates; its importance lies in the story around it.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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