"Hobo With A Shotgun" - Directed by Jason Eisener
A great title can go a long way in selling a movie... even if the movie is actually no good.
"Snakes On A Plane", "Nude Nuns With Big Guns", "Mega-Shark vs Giant Octopus", "Bitch Slap".... all fantastic titles that tell you all that you think that you need to know.
Unfortunately they are all terrible.
(I have a soft spot for "Bitch Slap" I'll admit but I acknowledge its awfulness)
Now, when I say terrible I don't mean that in the good-terrible way that films like "Plan Nine From Outer Space", "Naked Weapon", or "Picasso Trigger" are.
I mean terrible in that they totally squander their great titles and don't provide the goods that they have advertised.
When a cinema puts up a poster for a movie with a title like "Hobo With A Shotgun" certain promises are made.
Fortunately "Hobo With A Shotgun" largely delivers on these promises and we get a ridiculously over the top splatterfest with huge nods to good old fashioned seventies exploitation flicks.
Like the very similarly shot "Machete" this one was originally a fake trailer in the Grindhouse Double Feature that Tarantino and Rodriguez put together a few years ago.
The opening credits blaze out with copyright notices and "Techni-color" logo's set over shots of our Hobo hero played by Rutger Hauer arriving in town the only way that a self-respecting Hobo should- hitching on a train wagon.
Of course he is filthy and has a ripped wool hat and a cane that he pitches a sack full of lord knows what on.
He collects cans in a shopping trolley and ferret's around in trash cans and jumbo skips looking for hidden treasures.
However the town that he has arrived in is a hell-hole and a half.
It is run by the evil Drake and his babbling, douche-bag sons Slick and Ivan.
These morons run around in College jackets and shades killing for the demented, almost sexual thrill that it gives them.
The first victim that we see is their Uncle who is dropped down a manhole up to his neck and decapitated with a barbed wire noose attached to a speeding car.
The movie announces its intentions very quickly as a wedding dress adorned trollop thrashes around in the arterial spray caressing the blood onto herself with orgasmic pleasure.
I defy you not to giggle with sick glee at such sights.
All of the cops in town are corrupt and the place makes Old Detroit from the Robocop movies look like Club Med.
In fact the most decent person that we meet apart from the Hobo is pretty hooker Abby.
The Hobo is never named and even though it seems odd that Abby does not ask as they grow closer, you won't notice.
"Hobo With A Shotgun" is so single minded in its mission to bring outrageous violence and despicable villains doing despicable things to the screen that it simply has no time for anything like character arcs or backstory.
And it pretty much gets away with it.
I say pretty much because it does all become a bit much and I found myself wanting a little more in terms of depth.
I love a splatter-fest as much as the next guy (actually more) but this movie could do with some more work on characters.
We need to know a little more about the Hobo (how does he know how to handle the shotgun so well?) and we really need to know more about Abby.
Molly Dunsworth who plays Abby does well but our caring about her is almost totally down to the fact that she is pretty and the only person other than the Hobo worth rooting for.
It might sound nuts to ask for some character development in a movie clearly not aiming for anything beyond cheap, grisly fun but it really would help. At a very lean 86 minutes it has room for it.
But as I noted- this movie has only one thing on its mind and it surely pulls it off.
We get decapitations, burnings, beatings, human pinata via topless chicks and razor blade baseball bats, schoolbus loads of kids torched with a flamethrower and much, much more.
The most crowd pleasing aspect however is the dialogue.
"Hobo With A Shotgun" has some of the most random, corny and silly lines you have ever heard and it is all deliberate.
A conversation between Abby and the Hobo about bears is demented while throwaway lines like "The only thing I will let slide is my dick in your pussy" are impossible not to laugh at.
The whole thing is shot in garish, over-saturated colours mimicking the film stock of the seventies.
You'll expect Pam Grier to emerge in leather and a huge afro at any time (sadly she doesn't).
It is a love letter to movies like "Women In Cages", "I Spit On Your Grave", "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS" and "Death Wish" but doesn't take itself remotely as serious as any of those.
This is the sort of movie that really is completely honest with its title and if you hear it and think it's for you- it is.
If you don't- I would suggest something else.
If nothing else you will learn some handy things....
1) Any hooker worth a damn can turn her hand to welding and do-it-yourself arms manufacture.
2) Human beings are remarkably squishy and will just burst in a goopy shower of red sludge if shot, beaten or tapped with a bulldozer.
3) All cops are crooked but ordinary citizens can be inspired to rise up against injustice with a corny speech so long as it is delivered with enthusiasm.
"Hobo With A Shotgun" is the finest movie that Troma never made.
Rated R18 for crazy levels of splatter, sordidness, minor nudity (one topless scene) and awful, profane dialogue.
"Snakes On A Plane", "Nude Nuns With Big Guns", "Mega-Shark vs Giant Octopus", "Bitch Slap".... all fantastic titles that tell you all that you think that you need to know.
Unfortunately they are all terrible.
(I have a soft spot for "Bitch Slap" I'll admit but I acknowledge its awfulness)
Now, when I say terrible I don't mean that in the good-terrible way that films like "Plan Nine From Outer Space", "Naked Weapon", or "Picasso Trigger" are.
I mean terrible in that they totally squander their great titles and don't provide the goods that they have advertised.
When a cinema puts up a poster for a movie with a title like "Hobo With A Shotgun" certain promises are made.
Fortunately "Hobo With A Shotgun" largely delivers on these promises and we get a ridiculously over the top splatterfest with huge nods to good old fashioned seventies exploitation flicks.
Like the very similarly shot "Machete" this one was originally a fake trailer in the Grindhouse Double Feature that Tarantino and Rodriguez put together a few years ago.
Of course he is filthy and has a ripped wool hat and a cane that he pitches a sack full of lord knows what on.
He collects cans in a shopping trolley and ferret's around in trash cans and jumbo skips looking for hidden treasures.
However the town that he has arrived in is a hell-hole and a half.
It is run by the evil Drake and his babbling, douche-bag sons Slick and Ivan.
These morons run around in College jackets and shades killing for the demented, almost sexual thrill that it gives them.
The movie announces its intentions very quickly as a wedding dress adorned trollop thrashes around in the arterial spray caressing the blood onto herself with orgasmic pleasure.
I defy you not to giggle with sick glee at such sights.
All of the cops in town are corrupt and the place makes Old Detroit from the Robocop movies look like Club Med.
In fact the most decent person that we meet apart from the Hobo is pretty hooker Abby.
The Hobo is never named and even though it seems odd that Abby does not ask as they grow closer, you won't notice.
"Hobo With A Shotgun" is so single minded in its mission to bring outrageous violence and despicable villains doing despicable things to the screen that it simply has no time for anything like character arcs or backstory.
And it pretty much gets away with it.
I say pretty much because it does all become a bit much and I found myself wanting a little more in terms of depth.
 |
| Molly Dunsworth as Abby |
We need to know a little more about the Hobo (how does he know how to handle the shotgun so well?) and we really need to know more about Abby.
Molly Dunsworth who plays Abby does well but our caring about her is almost totally down to the fact that she is pretty and the only person other than the Hobo worth rooting for.
It might sound nuts to ask for some character development in a movie clearly not aiming for anything beyond cheap, grisly fun but it really would help. At a very lean 86 minutes it has room for it.
But as I noted- this movie has only one thing on its mind and it surely pulls it off.
We get decapitations, burnings, beatings, human pinata via topless chicks and razor blade baseball bats, schoolbus loads of kids torched with a flamethrower and much, much more.
The most crowd pleasing aspect however is the dialogue.
"Hobo With A Shotgun" has some of the most random, corny and silly lines you have ever heard and it is all deliberate.
A conversation between Abby and the Hobo about bears is demented while throwaway lines like "The only thing I will let slide is my dick in your pussy" are impossible not to laugh at.
You'll expect Pam Grier to emerge in leather and a huge afro at any time (sadly she doesn't).
It is a love letter to movies like "Women In Cages", "I Spit On Your Grave", "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS" and "Death Wish" but doesn't take itself remotely as serious as any of those.
This is the sort of movie that really is completely honest with its title and if you hear it and think it's for you- it is.
If you don't- I would suggest something else.
If nothing else you will learn some handy things....
1) Any hooker worth a damn can turn her hand to welding and do-it-yourself arms manufacture.
2) Human beings are remarkably squishy and will just burst in a goopy shower of red sludge if shot, beaten or tapped with a bulldozer.
3) All cops are crooked but ordinary citizens can be inspired to rise up against injustice with a corny speech so long as it is delivered with enthusiasm.
"Hobo With A Shotgun" is the finest movie that Troma never made.
Rated R18 for crazy levels of splatter, sordidness, minor nudity (one topless scene) and awful, profane dialogue.
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