Hobo With a Shotgun Movie Review

Hobo with a Shotgun (2011) is everything Grindhouse should have been, even though Deathproof and Planet Terror were still very good in my nonhumble opinion, and everything the faux movies of Stephen Romano's Shock Festival could have been or even are in some beautiful alternate reality.

I usually go through some of the 21st century low budget horror on Netflix instant in fast forward for ten minutes, trying to weed out the basically bad and the torture porn from the films I like, which include Universal monster movies, Hammer Horror movies, some Troma films and 80's horror films, and the every now and then exception. Occasionally I watch the whole thing. However, the trailer for this, and the grindhouse style advertising bothered me enough for a few weeks that I actually paid for this through I think Zune on my Xbox. And I was happily satisfied.

Hobo with a Shotgun is a strange amalgamation of camp and grindhouse with a unique formula that really works and one I hope others take up. The bad guys are so over the top they're right out of a Troma film, but with more gore, and the camp style of the film culminates with two henchman in the end that are either cyborgs , robots or knights in a nigh post-apocalyptic alternate reality in which a lot of Troma films seem to exist--I'm not sure what they are and it doesn't matter; kudos to the filmmakers for that, which is a hard stunt to pull off.

However, the glue that holds the film together is plainly and simply Rutger Hauer. For his world is not the campy world of Troma. He is dead set serious. Most Troma films, films like Troma films, and camp films in general always have the camp turned on for every character. But Rutger Hauer is more like an Alice in Scumville, Alice in the World About to turn Post Apacalypse. He is from our world in a way, but only metaphorically.

Other notes:

This is really the Falling Down and Taxi Driver of low budget horror and gore, in which the hero can only be reluctant for so long.

The color is crisp and vivid, and I'd like to know what they shot on, but they occasionally used red and blue filters or lighting which took away from that crisp color.

I tried including a pic of the poster, but it was too big. Check out the images and the variety of posters created for Hobo with a Shotgun.