Welcome to another Not-Quite-Horror Review.  I love Grindhouse.  I saw it in theater and have the standalone releases, an old bootleg of the theatrical cut with the Japanese special features, AND the recent American bluray.  I think the movies are tremendously entertaining, in different ways (BOTH of them).  I love the appreciation of older movies that its release spawned, leading to DVDs of more and more films from back then onto DVD (in prints of wildly varying quality).  I also like Machete.  True, it's massively politicized, but I see it as a "Mexploitation" movie in the style of "Blaxploitation" movies (like the awesome Black Dynamite).  It's also got Planet Terror's sense of the awesomeness of EXTREME VIOLENCE.  Now, there's another fake trailer that aired during Grindhouse that has gone full-length, but you probably didn't see it in America's Grindhouse theatrical run...

As part of Grindhouse's original release, Tarantino and Rodriguez held a fake trailer contest with the winner screening along with Grindhouse itself.  The winner was Hobo with a Shotgun, a fake trailer by Jason Eisener and his cohorts at Yer Dead films, Rob Cotterill and John Davies.  The trailer didn't hit American theaters, but it did play in Canada.  It's since been put onto the American Blu-ray of Grindhouse.  Basically, it's a trailer for a movie about a hobo who takes it upon himself to clean up a scummy town with a 12-Gauge.  The group's also known for the AWESOMELY gory short film, Treevenge (now available on Youtube) about Christmas from the perspective of Christmas trees.  Now, four years after Grindhouse, Eisener is back, having filmed a full version of Hobo with a Shotgun starring Rutger Hauer (The Hitcher) as the titular hobo.  Is it horror?  No.  It's more a crazy "exploitation/revenge" movie... on acid.  The question is, does the final product live up to its premise?

RELEASE:  May 6, 2011 (USA Limited)

DIRECTED BY:  Jason Eisener

WRITTEN BY:  Jason Eisener, Rob Cotterill, and John Davies

STARRING:

Rutger Hauer as Hobo

Molly Dunsworth as Abby

Brian Downey as Drake

Gregory Smith as Slick

Nick Bateman as Ivan

A hobo (Hauer) rides the rails into "Scum City" and sees the town overrun by corruption led by Drake (Brian Downey) and his two sons, Slick and Ivan (Gregory Smith and Nick Bateman).  The duo's reign of terror and violence has spread so far that the city is overrun with pimps, prostitutes, robbery, and worse.  One day, the hobo saves a prostitute named Abby (Molly Dunsworth) from Slick's clutches.  Slick responds by carving the word "Scum" into his chest and leaving him for dead.  The hobo makes his way back to Abby's where she nurses him back to near health.  The next day, the Hobo, desperate for money, consents to degrade himself in a "Bumfights"-esque video.  With the money, he heads to the pawnshop to fulfill his dream of buying a lawnmower.  Suddenly, 3 men in ski masks bust in and threaten to kill the owner, a mother, and her baby.  The hobo, having finally had enough of crime's reign of terror in the city, uses his money to buy a pump-action 12-gauge (with seemingly unlimited ammo) and takes out the robbers.  Now that he's packing, he sets his sights on cleaning up this hellhole... and Drake discovers a simple homeless man is ready to give him all he can handle...

Oh how I wish that Hobo with a Shotgun was as good as what spawned it.  To be fair, it's still a good movie.  But it's torn between being a "grindhouse" throwback and being more modern (particularly it's profanity-laden script).  The good things are the visual style (very bright...the film claims it was in Technicolor and it definitely shows it) and SOME of the acting.  Rutger Hauer NAILS this performance, growling and yelling epically quotable lines while also having the softer side necessary to make him a likeable character.  Also phenomenal is Molly Dunsworth's "Abby", providing both a quasi-kinda-sorta love interest (well as close as you can get without being one) and some serious ass-kicking ability as the film goes on.  I love Machete, as I've said, but if you wanna have some fun, compare "Abby"'s speech to the town late in the film with Jessica Alba in Machete's speech to the Mexican day-laborers.  Here's a hint:  the actress with less name-recognition blows Alba out of the water.

As I've said, there are problems though.  For one, the film moves kinda slow early on until the hobo gets his shotgun.  Once he has it, things start speeding along better and are more enjoyable.  Also, while it's kinda necessary for the hobo to be gruff and mumbly sometimes... it does make it a bit difficult to hear what he's saying sometimes (considering he has such great lines, that's not a good thing).  A more problematic issue is that our villains in this film are WAY off.  It's okay to have villains who are "over-the-top".  It's not okay for them to be this over-the-top in a film where they're supposed to be "grindhouse-esque".  Put another way, if the villains were toned down some, then it's possible the whole film would feel more 70s or 80s.  As it is, we end up with protagonists and a bunch of townspeople who could reasonably be in a movie of that time period acting alongside a bunch of villains who look like they came out of the 90s or 00s (from their acting style and profanity).  It causes a jarring clash of styles that is seen throughout the movie...the villains seem to be associated with far weirder, crazier things than the rest of the people in the movie (tentacles?  WHAT?  TENTACLES????).

Overall, I give Hobo with a Shotgun 3 Freak Heads out of 5.  In some ways, it nails down its intended target style, but in others it goes too far over-the-top.  It's not BAD to go that way; it just doesn't help what's supposed to feel "grindhouse-y".  However, I still think it's worth at least a look and recommend it for the great performances by Hauer and Dunsworth; as well as the fact that, while it doesn't TOTALLY nail its target "feel", it still gives quite a valiant, admirable effort at it.  As I write this, Hobo with a Shotgun is available On Demand as well as in limited release.  It hits DVD and bluray from Magnet Releasing on July 5, 2011.

Until next time, this is Crypticpsych saying "When life gives you razorblades... you make a baseball bat, covered in razorblades".

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE TRAILER FOR HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN!