Hobo with a Shotgun.

Shotgun.

Hobo.

Grindhouse is an American term for a cinema that mainly showed exploitation films, typically containing large amounts of sex, gory violence and various other unsavory sleaze and horror. Dubbed The Forbidden World of “Adults Only” Cinema by Eddie Muller and Daniel Faris in their book of the same name, this type of cinema did exist in the UK and the one that I knew was located in Kings Cross London near the Station, similar to the American program’s they put on double, triple and all-nighters where you could savior that delicate fragrance of dodgy cigarette smoke, those were the days my friend!!!!!!  The movies themselves were generally very low budget productions with poor print quality; the sound could be off kilter but their musical soundtracks would usually be great.

The term Grindhouse was resurrected in 2007 when Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino decided to write, produce and directed a double grindhouse bill complete with all the non-production values of the original genre including the bad print quality, gordy colour and even the obligatory missing pieces of film. It consisted of two new feature length movie’s Rodriquez’s Planet Terror which is about a group of rebels attempting to stay alive during an onslaught of zombie like creatures and Tarantino’s Death Proof which tells the tale of a sociopathic stuntman whose taste for stalking sexy young ladies gets him in to big trouble when he tangle’s with the wrong gang of badass babes. Trailers advertising bogus grindhouse type films preceded the showing of both these movies. 

Abbey who saves Hobo's life and look's nice to boot!!

Two of the trailers have since been made into feature films in their own right. The first was Machete (2010) and the second one created by filmmakers Jason Eisener, John Davies and Rob Cotterill won Robert Rodriguez’s South by Southwest Grindhouse trailers contest. Hobo with a Shotgun (2011) has been a straight to video cult hit. The narrative found on the back of the DVD runs as follows: When an ageing Hobo jumps from a freight train in a new town hoping for a fresh start, he soon realizes he has well and truly reached the end of the line. He finds himself trapped in an urban hell, an anarchic world overrun by murderers, rapists, pimps, petty crooks and corrupt police. Now its up to him to clean up the streets the only way he knows how: with a 20 gauge shot gun in his hand and two rounds in the chamber. With the town’s evil crime boss and his two psychopathic sons standing in his way, will Hobo’s own brand of street justice prevail? I think you have got the idea?  This tasteless sadistic gore fest is an affectionate tribute to the grindhouse low budget genre complete with garish Technicolor, loud 80’s soundtrack and Rutger Hauer as the Hobo of the title. I would seriously advice you to give this film a miss if you don’t want to see a school bus full of young children burnt to death by a flame thrower, if you not bothered: enjoy!!