Absurd is a film that asks the question: What if Michael Myers was Greek, healed like Wolverine, and had a priest hot on his trail who preferred biochemistry to holy water? The answer, it turns out, is a gloriously gory parade of Italian horror excess that’s as subtle as a surgical drill to the head and yes, that happens too.
The film opens with George Eastman, playing Mikos, being chased through the woods by a priest in what might be the slowest, least urgent pursuit ever committed to celluloid. After an ill-fated attempt to escape, Mikos is promptly disembowelled on some iron railings, a moment that sets the tone for the film’s loving devotion to close-up entrails. But don’t worry, he’s not done yet. In a display of medical optimism, the hospital staff try to stuff his guts back in, only to discover Mikos possesses a healing factor that would make the X-Men jealous. Naturally, he celebrates his miraculous recovery by murdering a nurse with a surgical drill, filmed in unflinching detail.
Director Joe D’Amato, never one to shy away from a good rip-off, cribbed liberally from John Carpenter’s Halloween so much that you half-expect Dr. Loomis to show up and complain about copyright infringement. The suburban setting, the babysitters, the menacing stalker: it’s all there, but filtered through a lens of Italian exploitation so greasy you’ll want to wash your hands after watching. The producers, smelling box office blood, clearly decided that originality was for suckers.
The film’s cast is a smorgasbord of horror archetypes: two babysitters, an obnoxious brat named Willy, his paraplegic sister, and a faithful hound who, in true genre tradition, is probably the smartest one in the house. The priest, meanwhile, delivers lines about serving God with biochemistry, suggesting he missed his true calling as a Bond villain.
If you came for the gore, Absurd delivers in spades. Heads are drilled, faces are fried, and limbs are lopped off with gleeful abandon. The film was so over the top in its violence that it landed on the infamous Video Nasty list in the UK, a badge of honour for any self-respecting 80s splatterfest. The special effects are lovingly practical, and the camera lingers on every squelch and spurt as if D’Amato were filming an infomercial for fake blood. However, this is about as good as it gets.
Despite its relentless stupidity Absurd has a certain charm. It’s a film that knows exactly what it is: a blood-soaked, shameless, and tasteless cash-in with all the narrative coherence of a fever dream. George Eastman, dead-eyed and towering, is both oddly sympathetic and terrifying. A monster who just wants to be left alone to heal in peace, and maybe murder a few people along the way, I think that’s something we can all appreciate.
Absurd is not a good film by any conventional metric. But if you’re in the mood for an Italian horror that’s equal parts laughable and stomach-churning, with a plot that’s as stitched together as its villain’s intestines, you could do far worse. Don’t expect logic, originality, or subtlety; that would be, well, absurd!
