Hobo with a Shotgun

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Second in-line for the fake 'Grindhouse' trailers to be made into an actual movie is 'Hobo with a Shotgun'. The trailer was apparently only seen in some Canadian releases of 'Grindhouse', and the actual film looks quite a bit different than what is shown in the trailer. Although the plot is essentially the same, originally, the hobo was portrayed by David Brunt. Here, it's Rutger Hauer who, in my opinion, is what really makes this movie.

An unnamed hobo (Hauer) enters the ironically named Hope Town; a city overrun with unspeakable acts of crime, headed by a crime lord known as "The Drake" (Brian Downey) who watches over things. In the meantime, the hobo minds his business, wanting to buy a lawnmower in order to start his own business and make a bit of extra cash. However, as a hobo, this guys ends up seeing how bad things really get, often becoming victimized, himself. Such acts include humiliating desperate homeless people on camera for money, which is something he eventually succumbs to participating in.

One day, the hobo sneaks a peek at the underground community, and it's pretty reminiscent of the Foot headquarters in '91s 'Ninja Turtles' - a bunch of punk kids, an arcade - but here, things are just a bit more R-rated. Here, the Drakes two sons, Slick (Gregory Smith) and Ivan (Nick Bateman) along with a few henchmen take delight in torturing and killing the homeless. This is where our hobo hero finally has enough, upon watching the sexual harassment of a prostitute named Abby. He knocks out and drags Slick to the police department, but learns how corrupt they are as well. His final straw results in him grabbing a shotgun and dishing out some vigilante justice. His primary targets - The Drake and his two sons.

Being that this is a Grindhouse movie, one should probably expect to see some pretty messed up shit. But being a Canadian Grindhouse movie, one should probably expect the scales to tip into even more messed up. For reference, see a handful of our terrifying PSAs, available on YouTube. We're super friendly and polite, but we're also a little bit looser about things around here, eh. Anyway, I might suggest that of the Grindhouse movies in the series, this one probably is the most disturbing. Luckily, it's filled with some really weird stuff too, so it reminds us that it's not something to be taken seriously at all. However to illustrate some of the brutal content here, let's just say that absolutely no one is safe in this movie. This one is definitely for the more hardcore at heart.

I have to imagine that the purpose of 'Hobo with a Shotgun' was to sort of reveal just how bad some of these old Grindhouse movies could actually get. While all of them have a good amount of gore, language, gore, sexuality and gore, this one also plays with the mind a little bit more than the others. Over the top or not, there's something truly psychologically disturbing about this one. You can laugh some of it off, but if any of these were an actual snuff film, it would probably be this one. Bascially, just make sure you have your wits about you when you venture into this one. It's not quite as "fun" as any of the others, although there are still elements of comedy.

Of the Grindhouse collection, this might be the one I'd openly recommend the least. It's the only one I walked away from with a big "WTF" reaction as opposed to something more positive. None of the other Grindhouse movies made me feel particularly uncomfortable about what I was watching, but this actually did. Despite a few funny moments, it does get cringeworthy with some of its contents, and not in a "lame joke" kind of way. I suppose that's the point, but it does have that air of torture porn about it that I've never been a big fan of. I can't say it was necessarily bad, as it's quite honestly supposed to be to some degree. At the very least, I can respect the fact that it accomplishes what it sets out to do.

3/5

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