Hobo With A Shotgun

Title: Hobo With A Shotgun

Director: Jason Eisener
Released: 2011
Starring: Rutger Hauer, Molly Dunsworth, Brian Downey, Gregory Smith, Nick Bateman, Pasha Ebrahimi, Jeremy Akerman, Peter Simas

Plot: A nameless Hobo (Hauer) arrives in Hope Town via a freight train box car with plans of buying a lawnmower and to start a new life for himself. However when he soon discovers that Hope Town has long since decended into lawless chaos, with the locals now referring to it as “Scum Town” while being ruled by the ruthless crime lord “The Drake” (Downey). Now arming himself with a pump action shotgun the Hobo sets out to dish out his own brand of vigilante justice.

Review: It’s true I might be alittle behind the bandwagon for this one, seeing how it was greeted with much excitement upon its release as it marked the start of the second wave of Neo-grindhouse movies being released in the wake of “Grindhouse”, a film I’ve already commented on numerous times previously due to its distribution being screwed up by the Weinstein’s figuring that British audiences (and pretty much everywhere outside of the states) were too dumb to get the format and split it into its individual films, rather than give us the true experience. Still it the legacy of the film and the Neo-Grindhouse genre it kick startednnot only gave us the trailer which spawned “Machette” aswell as “Machette Kills”, but also gave the world the first glimpse of this film as it appeared as one of the fake trailers on some prints of “Grindhouse”.

Right from the start director Eisener who makes his feature directorial debut here clearly likes to wear his influences on his sleeve, which in this case would seem to be largely gained from the OTT style of Troma Studios while mixing it up with the splatter and social satire style of Paul Verhoeven, all of which is clear from the opening scenes, which includes a barbwire decapitation and fountains of blood while the crime ridden streets of the streets of scum town seem to have been transplanted from Verhoeven’s classic “Robocop”. Still even the briefest of looks at the trailer alone highlights that like his inspirations, Eisener is not the sort of director who does anything subtly making the Neo-Grindhouse genre the perfect playground for his style, especially as its audience come expecting violence and splatter and here Eisener delivers both in spades.

Still there is thankfully a brain behind the splatter (if a delightfully sleazy one) as while he has certainly crafted one of the more splatter heavy films of recent years, Eisener still bothers to craft a half decent tale before getting distracted with unleashing carnage. On the downside his approaches to the material is with so excitable and frenzied, it can feel at times like you’re watching the product of a kid with ADD while on a sugar binge. At the same time he frequently stumbles when faced with the slower paced sequences as seen during the more tender moments between the hobo and aspiring school teacher turned prostitute Abby (Dunsworth) who despite seemingly having nothing in common, the Hobo recognises her innocence despite the world around them which continually threatens to corrupt her innocence.

Unsurprisingly the film is far from the deepest of viewing experiences with Eisener having a good eye for characterisation as he crafts some truly memorable characters, who are truly brought to life here with some great casting choices, with Hauer as the nameless hobo full of pure grit and snarl while Downey makes a perfect counter as the ruthless and sadistic Drake, whose love of showmanship and theatrics makes him the perfect centre piece in the collection of villainy and scum that Eisener has filled the streets of Scum town with. Oh and what a collection of scumbags it is, for like “The Toxic Crusader” these streets lined with the likes of the paedophile Santa and the director making bum fights style movies, all of which soon find themselves soon enough on the business end of the hobo’s shotgun as he sets about cleaning up the town and with such a black and white devide behind good and evil, there is no real moral questions raised regarding the hobos methods. Even more so when The Drake responds to the Hobo’s actions by carring out a mass hobo genocide in one of the films splatter centrepieces. Sadly he does miss a trick by underusing “The Plague” a pair of hired gun and full blown psycho’s hired by The Drake, who also dress like the medieval version of Daft Punk. However they are only introduced in the final quarter, leaving kind of disappointed that they are not used more, especially when they are such a unique and fun creation and generally hoping that Eisener finds some way of reusing them.

While most of the film is generally a care free exploitation throw back with Eisener generally flipping the bird to the censors and mainstream Hollywood, there are however a few moments were I felt the film perhaps overstepped the mark perhaps slightly too much and these were in the few scenes which saw children being openly threatened, while a school bus of kids being incinerated by a flame thrower to the strains of Disco Inferno just comes off as tasteless, even if it does makes a suitable setup for the death of one character whose soul we seeing being metaphorically dragged to hell in the same burning school bus.

As always the case with any film junkie who uses their expansive film knowledge in their film making the need to draw comparisons between them and Tarantino seems almost inevitable like Adam Green, but here Eisener seems only concerned with using the films which influenced this film as a reference point for his shooting style especially as he shoots the film in saturated and shifted colours rather than trying to reimagine scenes from the films he draws inspiration from. The soundtrack itself is also a throwback while also baffling including Lisa Lougheed’s “Run With Us” which let’s not forget was memorably also used on the 80’s childhood favourite “The Racoons” yet surprisingly it works rather well here.

A frequently grimy and hyperactive debut feature, but a noteworthy addition to the Neo-grindhouse genre, while were Eisener will go next is till unclear but providing he can dial back his over brimming enthusiasm slightly he could certainly be an interesting director to follow, especially if this debut is anything to go off.

Enter…Zombie King / Zombie King and the Legion of Doom / Zombie Beach Party

Title: Enter…Zombie King / Zombie King and the Legion of Doom / Zombie Beach Party
Director: Stacey Case
Released: 2004
Staring: Jules Delorme, Jennifer Thom, Raymond Carle, Rob “El Fuego” Etcheverria, Sean K. Robb, Nicholas Sinn, Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, Jennifer Deschamps, Tracy Brookshaw

Plot: Ulysses (Delorme), Mr. X (Robb), the Blue Saint (Carle) and his sister Mercedes (Clarke) a group of masked wrestlers on a mission to find out who is responsible for unleashing killer zombies on the local community, who it seems could be linked to the evil (and fellow masked wrestler) The Zombie King (Sinn)


Zombie King and the Legion of doom
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Review: Since getting Sky+ installed, I have in a short time managed to fill the hard drive of the box, with a varied wasteland of old Buffy episodes, Anthony Bourdain Travel documentaries and a variety of late night movies, which vary from films by the genre masters like Fulci to more obscure and certainly random movies like this one, which like so many of these films I tape in the early hours of the morning, only had the briefest of synopsis mentioning wrestlers and zombies, which is pretty much all it really needed to get my interest, though this really doesn’t even scrape the random surface of this film, which is not only a beautifully weird mix of zombies and wrestling, but also throws in random characters, lesbians, gratuitous nudity, surf rock and a healthy dose of gore to boot and somehow manages to make it all work!

Right from the start it’s clear wether your going to like this movie or not, as not only is it shot on cheaper film stock, than your usual mainstream movie, somthing which is usually enough to deter the more snobbish movie goer, but your also introduced to our supposed hero Ulysses who is not only a Santos imitator, but also providing a running deadpan narration throughout the film, while occasionally spouting random philosophy quotes in what it can only be imagined is an attempt, to make him seem deeper than your usual masked wrestling crime fighter. Still for his flaws at least you have a whole bunch of masked wrestlers to take your pick off and seeing how Ulysses is frequently pushed into the background until needed, with the other members of the group all getting their moment to shine, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was because I wasn’t the only one having doubts about his character, even more so when he is never actually called by this name.
The other warning sign for the less forgiving will be how truly random this world is, for not is it one were people can wonder around in Mexican wrestling masks, solving mysteries and not raise the slightest eyebrow raise, let alone the fact that trained zombies are also common place and despite everywhere being covered in snow and blowing a blizzard, it still doesn’t prevent Mercedes from heading off to the beach in a skimpy bikini.

Essentially this film can be seen in the same fun terms as the Santo and Superargo films, especially as they are such a clear inspiration here and without knowledge of their camp humour or a love for wrestling in general, it can make this film hard to get into for some, especially as a zombie film alone it stands up kind of shakily which seems to have been the main disappointment for the majority of people, who have seen this film, despite the fact that Case has managed to cram in a fair amount of satisfying moments of gore, but then for most the prospect of watching a film were the zombies are supporting cast, might be hard concept to grasp especially after so many years of movies portraying them as a main threat, for Case to actually take a step back and reduce his zombie hordes, to the same form (if slightly more carnivorous) of monstrous slave labour that they were originally used as in the early zombie movies, such as “White Zombie” (1932), way before Romero turned them into their more ravenous image that the general movie going public is more familiar with. Still Case even brings a wrestling flavoured spin to the slave zombie idea, as he opens with masked wrestler Tiki using zombies in a caged wrestling match, which despite being undead still manage to prove themselves surprisingly limber and actually put on an entertaining match, with wrestling unsurprisingly proving to be a major film, with Case even casting wrestling legend Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart as the sheriff, aswell as casting wrestling trainer Rob “El Fuego” Etcheverria as Tiki and also using TNA’s Tracey Brooks (seen here as Tracey Brookshaw) for some of the more involved fight scenes in which she doubles for Mercedes, but judging my Case’s comments on IMDB it would seem his love for the sport extends beyond this film, especially as he has frequently comments that he’d “rather work with wrestler over actors anyday”.

Soundtrack wise Case has gone for a surf rock packed soundtrack, which helps the action flow and even adds to the campy fun edge, while at the same time proving a perfect accompanyment to the action, while frustratingly has proven impossible to find, after getting stuck in my head since I first heard it and makes a refreshing change from all this darn rockabilly I keep hearing getting churned, while this soundtrack also makes a change from the usual tone deaf underground bands, which usually soundtrack these indie features.

This film is so hard to justify without watching it for yourself, especially as it’s horror moments aren’t exactly scary and some of the humour misses it’s mark, yet somehow it manages to pull everything together into a slightly surreal but highly entertaining ride and if you can just watch it for plain entertainment value, without feeling the urge to be critical over every single frame of film, there is definatly a lot to enjoy, especially for the established Santo and Superargo fans, who will no doubt get a kick out of seeing a new movie picking up were those films left off, while it also attempts to do something other than the basic horde movie, which it seems the majority of zombie films have become as of late and at least it’s bothering to try something new, when so much in the genre seems like it is just going over well trodden ground, so if you want something mindless and fun and your feeling open minded, especially if you thought that “The Calamari Wrestler” looked like fun, this might just be it’s perfect partner for a truly insane double feature.