Title: HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN
Year of Release—Film: 2011
An aging, scruffy and anonymous hobo (Rutger Hauer) climbs down from a freight train at the out-skirts of Hope City (renamed Scum City by its residents) looking for a fresh start in a new town. What he finds instead is a terrified town helplessly trapped in the grips of a psychopath named The Drake (Brian Downey) and his two equally evil and sadistic sons Ivan and Slick (Nick Bateman and Gregory Smith). With sickened eyes, the hobo stands helplessly by as The Drake has his own brother beheaded with barbed wire in front of the terrified citizens. Prostitution, vice and drugs are rampant, person-on-person violence is an everyday occurrence and the streets of this mean town, including its police department, clearly are in the iron fist of The Drake and his two obnoxious sons! Still, the hobo holds on to his dream of one day owning a lawnmower and opening a lawn care service.
He saves a golden-hearted hooker Abby (Molly Dunsworth) from Slick who has rape and murder on his mind and is carved up for his troubles. Grateful Abby allows the hobo to spend the night at her apartment and in the morning finds him gone. The hobo earns his lawnmower money by eating glass while being filmed by a deranged filmmaker but as he enters the pawnshop to buy his dream, he’s confronted by a hold-up in progress. The ski-masked robbers threaten to kill a baby if the terrified storeowner doesn’t give them more cash. Grabbing a shotgun from a display, the hobo blasts the bad guys and become a HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN! Delivering justice one shell at a time!
Outraged that this down-on-his-luck drifter is cramping his style and threatening his authority, Drake sends his two sons out to burn up a busload of children. When the local TV news begins its report on the tragedy, Slick and Ivan break in and, killing the TV reporter, tell their stunned audience that if the townsfolk don’t want their children killed in a similar way, they need to kill all the homeless people! Mass carnage ensues as the homeless are burned, shot and smashed flat with backhoes! The hobo is now the hunted as he tries to clean up a town that wants him dead!
First-time filmmaker Jason Eisener has clearly studied exploitation films and with HOBO breathes new life into a genre that has grown moribund. In 2007, Eisener entered and won an internet contest to create a fake trailer similar to the ones found on Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse double-feature. The HOBO trailer went viral and put Eisener on the fast -track to turning his $120 trailer into a feature-length feature. But, for some reason, would-be investors didn’t think cinematic viewers would go for the scene with the bus-load of burning children so it took much haggling and two long years for Eisener to come up with the capital. HOBO splashed it’s blood-soaked way across limited screens giving the audience everything from a pedophile Santa Clause to some unexplained tentacled creatures who seemed to have wandered in from another movie. Did I say blood-soaked? This movie is awash in blood, guts and gore! Definitely not for the squeamish!
Rutger Hauer plays the title role with a road-weariness that makes a believable and even likeable anti-hero. He appears and acts exactly like a rum-soaked, down-on-his-heels drifter. Brian Downey as the Drake put on his shtick like some deranged game-show host, playing to his captive audience while killing it’s members. Gregory Smith plays Slick like a demented Tom Cruise in 1983’s RISKY BUSINESS. And it was pleasant to see Robb “Ricky” Wells from Trailer Park Boys again, even in the cameo role of the Uncle who is beheaded in the opening scene. But, it’s Molly Dunsworth as the hooker with the heart of gold that really stands out in this! Producers should take note of her convincing acting job as Abby and get her agent on the phone before it’s too late! I sincerely hope that this is only the beginning for Jason Eisener and we gore-hounds can look forward to many more!
Enjoy!
Senior Correspondent Bobbie
And Now, A Special Short Review from Senior Correspondent Bobbie!
THE HUMAN BEE-ING (2002)
It will bleed you white with stark, naked terror!
A brilliant film titled THE HUMAN BEE-ING just crossed the Video Vault's threshold and this short film deserves a short introduction and a big pat on the back! An homage to 1950's big-bug movies, from it's William Castle-like opening speech which warns that anyone in the audience with heart problems, is over the age of 50 or under the age of 25 or suffers from palsy should not watch this film to its clever and comedic ending, it's 45 minutes you're not likely to forget!
Funded by Allen Danasco (Eric Hoffman), who owns a typing firm, mad scientist Dr. Charles Metzenbeamer (Jim Coughlin) has almost perfected a worker bee-human by combining human DNA with worker bee DNA to come up with a tireless typist bee. No one seems to notice this human bee's rather large head because Dr. Metzenbeamer has cleverly dressed it in a suit, a toupee, slapped a phony mustache on it, and chained it to its desk where it tirelessly and efficiently types all day and all night. No one that is except co-typist Stacey (Ronit Feinglass Plank) who finds herself strangely drawn to this new Mr. Hives. Her boyfriend, Joe De Compana (John Varga) hardly noticed his girlfriend's strange obsession even after being warned by Stacey's best friend, Diane (Meredith Weiner). As Allen Danasco demands more human-bee workers, the human office staff mysteriously begins to disappear!
Extremely smart with quick, dry humor, The Human BEEing is wonderfully acted and brilliantly directed by Tony Shea and co-written by actor Jim Coughlin. It never spoofs 1950's B-movies but lovingly embraces the genre. The Human BEEing is one of the best short films I've seen and I truly hope this won't be the last I see of Tony Shea and company! Kudos!
Senior Correspondent Bobbie
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