10 Horror Films That Will Make You Nostalgic For The 1980s

Directed by the legendary Joe D’Amato (who’s better known for cheap sexploitation pictures like Erotic Nights Of The Living Dead), Absurd is an Italian Halloween imitation and it’s one of D’Amato’s best films. From its prowling camera to its synth score, Absurd imitates Halloween at every turn, and ripping off a better filmmaker has inspired D’Amato to make a more entertaining film than usual, with snappier pacing and more energy.

George Eastman plays a mute, unstoppable killer who stalks babysitters and nurses, and the movie has a wonderfully hokey explanation for why you can’t kill the Bogeyman. A “biochemical experiment” (performed on a Greek island, no less) transformed Eastman into a superhuman killing machine whose body regenerates after being shot, stabbed, set on fire etc. The only way to stop him: destroy the “cerebral mass.”

Instead of repeating his usual trick of cramming all of the gore scenes into the last reel, D’Amato throws one in every ten minutes or so, with a nurse, an orderly and a motorcyclist (played by future director Michele Soavi) all being dispatched in the first act. He still cranks it up for the climax, delivering a shameless facsimile of Halloween II as Eastman, blinded by the heroine, hunts her by sound in a confined space.