Hobo with a Shotgun [Review by Parsi]

I love bad movies.  Seriously love them.  I guess I ought to explain.  I like movies that are so bad they are good.  Movies you can laugh at and mock openly with no remorse.  Movies that are so stupendously stupid that they bring an audience joy.  Bad movies are meant to be seen with a crowd.  There is just something great about bonding with a group of people over how ridiculous a movie can get.  Sure, there are movies that are just mediocre or are terrible, and thus no fun.  But, every once in a while there is a movie that is so awesomely bad it unites a generation.  Movies like Sleepaway Camp, Troll 2, and Over the Top are awesomely bad.

Hobo with a Shotgun, is a film made in a subgenre that pays homage to these bad movies.  If you really want to get to the heart of this subgenre watch Peter Jackson’s two early films Bad Taste and Dead Alive (Braindead for our Non-North American readers).  They are absolutely fantastic, two of my favorite movies of all time.  Dead Alive is one of the best Zombie movies ever made, no doubt about it.  Watch these movies now.  I am waiting.  Grab a group of people, any will do, even people you might not like, you will bond, these movies are awesome.

Haus is right.  Hobo does some things really well.  There are some absolutely classic one-liners.  “Hobo stops asking, demands change.”  Some of the violence is perfectly over the top.  The scene that readily comes to mind is a stabbing using the nub that remains after a hand is mowed down.

But Hobo also raises some concern with movies in this subgenre.  Namely, what makes bad movies great is that they are unintentionally bad.  Sometimes the effort to make a movie totally over the top bad leaves me feeling like they tried too hard.  Think about a person who is so saccharin nice that they just feel disingenuous and wrong.  Well, Hobo takes that turn some times.  The movie opens with a way over the top decapitation scene that is intentionally too hokey and did not really work.  Scenes with the Drake’s sons Ivan and Slick are over the top.  One of the early scenes where the brothers are torturing an arcade patron and spraying powder in a mix between a Warren Miller movie and a Scarface revival, just did not click.  It was forced.

Haus, is spot on that Rutger Hauer is the motor making the movie hum.  He is fantastic as the Hobo.  He carries the movie, “one shell at a time.”

I would caution that it is a little misplaced to dismiss the exploitation and social commentary elements in the movie.  What makes great the B-movies, exploitation films, and vigilante flicks that Hobo apes work is that they are trying to send a message.  Don’t be too quick to dismiss this element.

At the end of the day Hobo is a good time.  The package works.  If you are interested in a raucous good time and enjoy cringing straight into laughter, watch this movie.  If you love this movie please see the classics I mention above.  If you only kind of liked the movie, rush to see the movies above.  Bad movies are great.  Embrace them.

PARSI VERDICT: Shotgun bang what’s up with that thang?  Watch and learn.

See what the other half thinks: Haus’s review.