A few years back Quentin Tarrantino and Robert Rodriquez made a film called GRINDHOUSE. The film featured two movies that paid tribute to the type of film known as grindhouse films, exploitation films that played in the cheap theaters of New York’s Times Square and across the country in most drive ins. They usually featured copious amounts of blood, breasts, gore, violence and were usually in pretty poor condition physically with scratched prints galore. The two directors also included fake previews of coming attractions in their film. Which led to a contest.
The contest was to see if online readers could make their own coming attraction preview in the grindhouse mode. I honestly don’t recall what the winner received with the exception of being known online as the winner. In this case the winner was Jason Eisner and his preview was for HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN. From that short preview Eisner found backing to make it into a feature film and switched from an unknown to movie star Rutger Hauer in the lead role. The film remains true to the preview and offers one of the goriest films ever made.
Shot in an extra bright seemingly psychedelic palette of colors, the film opens with Hauer riding the rails and stopping to get off in a town renamed Scum Town via spray paint on the original sign. This town looks bad from the start. Trash fills the street, people are covered in dirt and grime and everyone seems to walk around in a daze.
While picking up bottles to trade for cash, the Hobo watches as a man runs down the street begging for help, handcuffed and wearing what appears to be a manhole cover around his neck. Caught by a pair of bad guys doing their best Tom Cruise impersonations, their boss/father shows up. The Drake is mean with a capital M. This is his brother and he’s unhappy with him but rather than give him a break, he drops him in a hole, puts a barb wire noose around his neck and after attaching the other end to his son’s car decapitates him. The blood flows freely and excessively, a geyser of red that covers The Drake’s scantily clad companion.
The Hobo runs into the pair of sons again and enters their club unseen. He watches as a young woman named Abby stands up to the leader of the two and saves her from them; placing himself in danger should he be caught later on. Abby later befriends the Hobo and he tells her all he wants is enough money to buy a lawnmower and start his own business.
Instead when he goes to buy the mower after making enough money, a trio of robbers enters the pawn shop where he’s at and threatens everyone there. He makes a quick decision and walks past the lawnmower to the shotgun on the wall and opens up on the trio. The result is more flowing blood and gore. The Hobo becomes a hero of sorts, walking around town in broad daylight and shooting every violent miscreant that walks the streets.
Of course this catches the eye of The Drake and he sends his sons out to take care of the situation. More gore, more blood and plenty of violence follows until the final showdown happens.
If you understand the word Troma, then you’ll know what to expect here. Outlandish simplistic plot, an overabundance of gore/blood and acting that is more often than not sub-par. There is no depth to the story here and people with necks sawed with a tree saw survive to fight again, people with broken limbs feel no pain after a face full of cocaine and the world continues to look crummy even as the end credits role.
Fans of this sort of film and of Troma (who surprisingly had nothing to do with this film) pictures will adore this movie. Those who like more mainstream films will find their jaws dropping into their laps as they watch scene after scene. And those like me, somewhere in the middle, will appreciate the attempt at making a grindhouse epic while at the same time wondering why? Not only that, we’ll wonder why an actor of Hauer’s stature would think this was worth being in. Has he truly landed on hard times? I can think of no other reason than the sheer novelty of being in this movie.
A word of warning: this movie is DEFINITELY not for kids. The extreme gore scenes while played out in all their bright colored glory are not for the sensitive nor for young eyes.
No comments:
Post a Comment