Hobo With A Shotgun

Hobo With A Shotgun (2011)

75% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 69 reviews)

Runtime: 86 minutes

Directed by: Jason Eisenser

Starring: Rutger Hauer, Molly Dunsworth, Brian Downey, Nick Bateman

From: Alliance

Here’s a movie that I’ve known about for awhile and while you can likely find it via on demand services and watch it at home, I was glad I waited out and saw it on the big screen via the Enzian Theater. I am also glad that Magnet released it on the U.S. so that people like me can watch something this f***** up on the big screen.

So, a fan-made trailer entitled Hobo With A Shotgun added to some screenings up in Canada to the big screen showings of Grindhouse via a contest that was won by the filmmakers. You can watch said trailer here. A lot of the ideas there ended up in the motion picture that was released earlier this year.

As an aside, Thursday night I had a rather horrifying night which involved talking to some young lady I barely know via a forum and trying to tell her that she shouldn’t go with her threats to KILL HERSELF; I swear, this is true. She even posted a photo to everyone on the forum of her just-bandaged wrists, which were just slit. Wow. The last I knew, she’s still alive and I hope she’s getting help for her personal demons. You can read more about it here in my usual blogs I post on Facebook and now Blogger on a weekly basis.

I bring that up as after that sort of night, I needed to have some time set aside where I can watch what I know is a depraved and really wacked-out and yet entertaining at the same time if you enjoy that sort of thing motion picture. Thus, me going out Friday night to see this. The crowd I saw it with was smaller than I expected, and from what I could tell the movie got a mixed reaction, but me, I was flabbergasted by what I saw on screen… in a good way. From the 70’s opening credits to the apparent 80’s setting all the way to the LOL-worthy end credits song, which is preposterous-sounding 80’s song that sounded like something made up from the film but actually is a song from the 80’s that was for the opening of some 80’s Canadian kids show about raccoons (!?)*, it was quite the experience.

• I swear, it’s true. Just check out this link.

The plot of this movie… an unnamed hobo (Hauer) ends up in a city known as Hope Town (but commonly known as something far more vulgar) and discovers it’s a wasteland of crime and it’s controlled by a slimy guy known as Drake (Downey) who has his two sons run roughshod over everything. He meets up with a whore with a heart of gold (Dunsworth) and he saves up enough money to buy a lawnmower. Really! That would be his new job… but one day, something happens and he decides to live up to the title of the film and he gets his revenge.

I’ll tell you right away that this film is unrated for a good reason. If you’ve seen Peter Jackson’s early movies-like Dead Alive-then you have an idea as to the level of violence, gore, and downright depravity you get to see. Beheadings, disembowelings, a pedophile Santa, and many shotgun wounds are seen. There’s a lot of fake blood you get to see.

There’s a section on IMDB’s website-Parents Guide-which lists all the things in a movie that parents would be objectionable if their kids watched that film. For this movie… it’s rather long. Here’s a bit I got from there, and if it’s your thing, then you should check out the movie. If not, then you can skip it:

A man is placed in a manhole, has a barb wire noose placed around his neck which is attached to a car, and is decapitated. Blood fountains from his head and hookers grind while the blood coats them.

The movie isn’t good technically, but it’s SO outrageous and over the top it becomes captivating, and it helps that they have a legit actor in the lead. Hauer’s not a bad thespian at all but for whatever reasons he’s ended up in a lot of films that are not too good. Here, he delivers a performance that isn’t phoned in, and it stands out among the rest of the cast, which I’ll say is inexperienced.

I understand you can still find it on demand in some spots, but it’s coming out on DVD/Blu-Ray in a few weeks. At least see it that way if this is up your alley. I'll be back Monday night.