Hobo with a Shotgun (Jon’s Take) – Review

It was only after I woke up the next day, did I realize that I had the best acid trip of my life. Let me recall: After 86 minutes, my trip wasn’t over. Whatever Jason Eisener gave me hasn’t stopped. I was in this room and the walls were breathing, yet it was raining rainbow-colored VHS tapes from a hidden collection behind the curtain of this video store. The clerk was sweaty and he laughed. I stumbled along, as the fluorescent lights radiated a mirage of colors. As I slowly picked up the VHS cover of Street Trash, a whirlwind came from behind. I turned and saw Margaret Thatcher. She was tall and bearing, as she pointed her finger at me. “No, not that!” She scolded. Just as I turned cold, a buck shot ripped through her and she fell into her own blood.

“Welcome to Scumville!” the Hobo cried. Hobo with a Shotgun is the rare high art offspring of Troma and Street Trash. It’s bad-ass trash cinema.

Wonderfully presented in Technicolor, Hobo with a Shotgun is just as rude and crude as a nose-picking fat kid who just called you a c*nt. Now, an imitation of that rude and crude nose-picking fat kid who just called you a c*nt is droll and hollow, yet that’s the fine line director Jason Eisener walks in this ode to Troma films, by the way of the grindhouse yesteryear. Tarantino/Rodriguez’s Grindhouse experiment failed a couple of years ago, but its real success has been the revitalized genre of films in its wake. Sure, the grindhouse thing is played out now, but the blurry, bombastic colors of Hobo, along with its over-the-top camp attitude, shall win anyone – who laughs at a fart joke by themselves as people look on in disgust – over.

This movie is certainly not for your Grandma. It might not even be for a section of the horror crowd, but it’s as pleasing as any would-be “throwback” has to offer. Rutger Hauer is back in his The Hitcher mode, homaging the square-jawed menace, with a little humor and heart, but nobody told him that the film is a schlock exercise. He’s in a different film here. And that’s the fun and funny part. His straight-laced performance counter-balances the outrageous elements of the script, which keeps the film from fully going over into bad-movie absurdity.

Hobo with a Shotgun is a long lost video nasty and the best thing Troma never done. It’s a perfect storm of entrails, penises, blood, and humor, all at trash cinema’s finest hour.

Rating:

Jon Peters

I love film. That is all.

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