Horrible (1981)

aka
Rosso Sangue
Zombie 6
Absurd

Dir: Joe D'Amato

The film opens with Mikos (George PORNO HOLOCAUST Eastman) running through the woods

desperately trying to escape from his pursuer, a priest (Edmund Purdom, the dean in PIECES). They run some more. They continue running. And a bit more running until Mikos manages to impale himself while trying to climb a gate. He musters enough strength to ring the doorbell of the rural home he has ended up at and promptly
spills his intestines on the welcome mat as the home owner answers.

Mikos is taken to the local hospital (Ted Rusoff, dubber extrodinaire, is one of the doctors operating on him). While on the operating table the doctors realize that Mikos' blood coagulates quickly. In the film that ability translates to surviving impalement on iron spikes and being shot multiple times. Which works out well for Mikos seeing as he is a blood crazed killer whose two favourite things to do seem to be meander around rural villages and dispatch everyone he comes across in an inventive and gory manner. Luckily for Mikos there's a nurse he can ram a drill into the head of and a rural village right outside the hospital doors.

The priest continues to chase after Mikos and when he's picked up by police for looking suspicious he fills them (and the viewer) on the negligible back story. Mikos and the priest are Greek and Mikos was transformed into the killing machine he is by some sort of scientific experiment gone awry. How the pair made it from Greece to the U.S. is never explained. But at least the priest has not only convinced the chain smoking police detective that Mikos must be found, also the detective hands over a pistol and keys to a squad car. No more running for the priest. Can the police and the priest track down and stop the maniac before he kills again?

A reviewer could just write 'Horrible' and be done with the review. But I was entertained by bits and pieces of the film. It certainly wasn't the non existent script or Joe D'Amato's lackluster direction. I willingly waded through long boring stretches to get to the '80's crude and in your face gore; the highlight a band saw to the head. Seeing a young Michelle Soavi as a biker menacing an old man was another nostalgia kick. And rural Italy being passed off as rural America led to a number of curious set pieces and every day things looking a bit ... different. I know that when I'm hosting a Super Bowl party at my house I like to have the missus serve pasta while the game is still on. Forget nachos or wings, present a big bowl of plain spaghetti and everyone will be happy.

Unless you are attempting to see every D'Amato film (I do not recommended putting oneself through that torture) or think George Eastman is dreamy, skip this.





* out of ****