'Hobo With A Shotgun' – Even Crazier Than You Imagined [Sundance Review]

The whole tongue-in-cheek, gory, B-movie grindhouse thing is so played out these days. How many ways can you film the explosion of the human head or the mutilation of a body part, really? Before Hobo With A Shotgun, I would have said there was some sort of ceiling to that kind of carnage. But co-writer and director Jason Eisener has come up with so many new, creative ways to destroy the human body (and insane dialogue to go along with it) that, I dare say, he's taken the tongue-in-cheek, gory, B-movie grindhouse thing to a whole new level. Hobo With A Shotgun is so incredibly over the top with its excess, fans of this genre are going to be bowing to it.

As a "movie," Hobo With A Shotgun is obviously abysmal. There's no real plot except a hobo, played by Rutger Hauer, eventually gets a shotgun and uses it to kill all the vagrants in a lovely little place nicknamed F*** Town. Along the way, he does befriend a prostitute named Abby (Molly Dunsworth) which, I guess, gives him some kind of motivation. But really the motivation is that this town is a breeding ground for rapists, murders, pedophiles and they need to be buried. F*** Town is run by a man named Drake (Brian Downey) and his two sons Slick (Gregory Smith) and Ivan (Nick Bateman). The sons are so insane they deserve to have their own movie. They go around doing the most awful, terrible things imaginable yet they do it with an unabashed glee that makes it hard not to laugh.

No matter how many grindhouse films you've seen, chances are, there are things in Hobo With A Shotgun that will be 100% new to you. The screenplay revels in coming up with phrases and jokes that are either hilarious in their simplicity or genius in their juxtaposition. Then there are the kills. Sure there's plenty of simple stuff like just shooting people with shotguns, but then there are elaborate tortures, innovative uses of everyday items and so much more.

That's really what it's all about in Hobo With A Shotgun. It's not so much about the hobo, the shotgun, the story or any of that. It's about how creative the film can be with your expectations. For that alone, it's worth checking out. Basically, if you love movies with gore and witty bon mots, you're in for a real treat.

/Film Rating – 6 out of 10