This Halloween, The Westdale screened the 1975 cult classic, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with an extra special drag pre-show with Hamilton drag performers
By Naomi Moshe, Arts & CUlture contributor
The Rocky Horror Picture Show has been drawing in audiences worldwide for over 45 years for a reason. The cult classic film is not only jam packed with fun, but it is also a landmark piece of cinema for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. The film exudes the message of radical self acceptance, and being unafraid of the hidden desires that live deep within all of us––a sentiment that the queer community of the mid 1970’s desperately needed to hear. As a result, midnight screenings of Rocky Horror became safe spaces for the queer community to socialize and connect with one another at a time when simply existing as a gay person in broad daylight was a dangerous act.
When I heard that The Westdale was screening Rocky Horror on Halloween night, including a special drag pre-show with local Hamilton drag performers Jessie James and Karma Kameleon, I knew I needed to go. Besides, is there any better way to spend Halloween night than heckling profanities at a giant screen surrounded by hundreds of other people?
The atmosphere at The Westdale was, in a word, electrifying. Of course, crowds of people dressed up as characters from the movie. But more importantly, people were genuinely excited for the show, even though most people in attendance probably have seen this film more times than they could count on both hands. The energy was infectious––the entire theater was buzzing with anticipation.
The drag pre-show, hosted by Jessie James and Karma Kameleon, was a blast. Karma and Jessie performed campy lip syncs of songs from the movie’s soundtrack, including “Dammit Janet” and “Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me.” The highlight of the night for me was Jessie’s incredible live vocal performance of “Sweet Transvestite.” I had the pleasure of speaking with Jessie shortly after the event to get some insight on the importance of nights such as these for Hamilton’s queer community.
“Visibility is so important. I didn’t see myself growing up, and I struggled a lot with that. Being able to put on public events where people can come see us be explicitly queer, it’s the first step in having a conversation about [queerness.] It demystifies the queer experience. It brings a lot of joy into it,” explained Jessie.
When asked about her personal highlight of the night, Jessie said that it was when the whole theater got up and did the Time Warp with her and Karma. “To look out into the audience and see everyone standing up and dancing along…There [are] very few words I could use to describe the energy you feel from that. It’s almost addictive in a weird way,” said Jessie.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show continues to bring together people from all walks of life, even 45 years after its release. And, for Hamilton’s LGBTQ+ community, events like these create space for authentic self expression and unapologetic queerness.
Following their Oct. 24 Halloween literature event, The City & The City spotlights some classic and contemporary horror novels
The City & The City, a new and used bookstore located on Ottawa St., hosted a Halloween-themed reading and costume party at the Casbah on Oct. 24. According to Janet Hoy, one of the owners of The City & The City, the event featured a costume contest, DJing by the 45 Selector and horror readings from three Ontario-based writers.
The writers featured at the event were Andrew F. Sullivan, Tony Burgess and Liz Worth.
Andrew F. Sullivan is a Hamilton-based author whose most recent novel, The Handyman Method, was published in August 2023 and co-written with fellow Canadian author Craig Davidson (pen name Nick Cutter). The Handyman Method is a domestic horror novel that depicts a young family moving into a new community and receiving mysterious, ominous suggestions for solving household problems.
The Handyman Method is the second novel that Sullivan has published in 2023, following The Marigold, which was released in April of this year. Another novel with a strong horror element, The Marigold depicts a near-future dystopian version of Toronto. Hoy praised the novel for its creepy tone and its ability to depict the decay of a city.
Hoy also said that Tuesday’s event at the Casbah was initially Sullivan’s idea.
“He was saying, let’s do something for Halloween, because [The Handyman Method] came out just about a month ago. So, we’ve worked with Liz Worth in the past, and he knows Tony Burgess, so he compiled the writers because they’ve written horror novels. And that’s how it came together,” explained Hoy.
Tony Burgess, another one of the writers featured on Tuesday, published his first novel, Pontypool Changes Everything, in 1998. Pontypool Changes Everything is an apocalyptic horror novel that puts a subversive twist on zombie fiction. Burgess also wrote the screenplay for the 2008 film Pontypool, which was adapted from his novel and directed by Bruce McDonald. Burgess has since written numerous other horror novels and screenplays.
Liz Worth, the final author featured at Tuesday’s event, is a novelist, poet and Tarot reader. She published her most recent novel The Mouth is a Coven in October 2022, just in time for last Halloween. Liz Worth is a Hamilton-based writer, and her novel features vampires and other gothic elements.
Beyond the novels featured at Tuesday’s event, Hoy offered even more spooky and autumn-appropriate book recommendations, both classic and contemporary.
Regarding classics, Hoy highlighted House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski, published in 2000, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, published in 1962. House of Leaves is an intricately crafted and formally subversive horror novel that centres around a terrifying house. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a gothic mystery focusing on a dark family secret.
“You can never go wrong with Shirley Jackson! We Have Always Lived in the Castle is one of my favourite books ever,” said Hoy.
Regarding contemporary novels, Hoy explained that women writers and Indigenous writers have been exploring the genre of horror in interesting ways. Hoy specifically recommended Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow and Moon of the Turning Leaves, Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory and Mariana Enriquez’s Dangers of Smoking in Bed.
Regarding contemporary novels, Hoy explained that women writers and Indigenous writers have been exploring the genre of horror in interesting ways. Hoy specifically recommended Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow and Moon of the Turning Leaves, Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory and Mariana Enriquez’s Dangers of Smoking in Bed.
For students interested in discovering literary fiction and Ontario-based writers beyond the horror genre, The City & The City regularly hosts readings and other literary events. Coming up on Dec. 7, they plan to host four writers published by Book*hug Press for an in-store reading. For regular updates on literary events hosted by The City & The City, students can follow their Instagram.
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By: Joe Jodoin
After its premier at the 2015 Sundance Festival, The Witch is finally out in theatres nationwide. I wasn’t looking forward to this movie very much, as I find most horror movies are poorly made in their reliance on jump scares, and have clichéd characters.
The Witch, however, completely blew me away. By relying on atmospheric horror, the film creates a depressing, unsettling environment that slowly builds tension and dread over its brisk 93-minute runtime.
The movie takes place in the 1630s, a time when people actually believed witches were real, and follows a family who is ostracized by their church and forced to make a life for themselves on the outskirts of a creepy forest. This proves to be a more difficult task than they thought, as all their crops mysteriously die, and their baby boy suddenly disappears into thin air. The family soon learns that a witch is behind their bad luck and they must find a way to survive its incredible torment.
The plot is very simple, but Robert Eggers’ direction is what makes it so special. The whole tone and atmosphere of the film makes watching it creepy, chilling, and quite unpleasant to watch at times. Be forwarned that this is not a movie that is “scary” in the typical sense of the word. It doesn’t make you scream or jump or be afraid to sleep at night. Instead, it just crawls under your skin and lingers on long after it ends.
Eggers also crafted the film with incredible attention to detail. All the sets, clothing and dialogue are accurate to the time period. A lot of the dialogue was actually taken from diaries and real life accounts of witches from the 1600s. This brought a realistic dimension to the story and made it very easy to become invested in the family’s wellbeing. However, the origins of the dialogue also made it difficult for a modern audience to fully comprehend it, which took away from my enjoyment of the film.
Despite that one flaw, The Witch has raised the bar for the modern horror genre. If more films followed suit, we could start to take the horror genre seriously once again. I would recommend watching The Witch if you want to finally see a film that subverts all horror clichés, while also presenting a dark and disturbing work of art.
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Every year around Halloween, I like to binge-watch scary movies to get me in the mood for the holiday. This year, my partner suggested something new: binge-playing a scary game. He had read reviews and decided on the action horror game, Alien: Isolation, which has been out now for just over a year. Over the past two weeks, we took turns playing through this adventure on his computer.
I had fun playing as Amanda Ripley, a strong female protagonist, using stealth and logic tactics to avoid the single alien and other, lesser enemies. The game takes place 15 years after the first Alien film, with Amanda setting out on a quest to find some details about her missing mother, Ellen Ripley. This is the initial objective of the game, but it eventually turns into finding a way off the Sevastopol, a space station littered with the alien, androids, and human survivors. This change in objective is fine, but the game does not make that clear (suggestion: don’t give me false hope for an ending before extending the conclusion of the game by several hours.)
There are numerous positives to the game. Given that it’s a first-person game, you really get to experience the scares up close and personally. There are many tense moments, including your initial cut scene encounter with the titular Xenomorph as it slithers out of a vent over your head. Even before this, you experience the main tactics of the game: crouching, slow walking, and peeping, which are all necessary for your survival. Bullets are limited and various diversion-generating devices are plenty. This adds to the fear and suspenseful experience of Alien: Isolation.
I enjoyed playing as Amanda, but I found that the motion tracker quickly becomes the protagonist of the game. This isn’t necessarily a complaint, but I didn’t enjoy relying so heavily on the device. The sounds are a close second to ensuring your safety, but the problem with this is that it’s rather unreliable. Unfortunately, the game wasn’t without its glitches. From patchy spawning and traveling of the alien across the map, to unreliable sounds, you have to play a guessing game as to where your main enemy is throughout the 15 hours of gameplay.
In lieu of these glitches, you find yourself dying often without chance of survival. Given that I died innumerable times, I got to experience the various kill sequences by the Xenomorph. These are detailed and upsetting, but also relieving, as you have breathing time before your next spawning in a loaded save.
Save points are few and far between, which is frustrating, given the pace you travel through the game. With all of the sneaking and slinking, you assuredly won’t be making your way through this game too quickly. Additionally, it is made clear that you will need to backtrack through the station by the doors requiring an ion torch — something you will continually wonder about for quite some hours.
A main challenge of the game is hiding from your enemies. If you find yourself in one of the many lockers across the map, you can waste your health by holding your breath and lean into the back of the locker. One time, I had found my way into a small metal storage cabinet, and an android aggressively ripped me out, pulling me toward his blank, red-light-lit eyes. Sudden scares like this force you to mirror the fear Amanda is going through in the game. They also make the patterns confusing, as an enemy can discover you randomly, despite all of the precautions you take.
Rewiring stations — placed all around the map — are confusing. It took some time to figure out what the point of them was and what they added to the gameplay. Most of the time, it was nothing except a little atmospheric embellishment.
The atmosphere is built in the down time between alien appearances. Following the aesthetic of the first movie, Alien: Isolation is designed to look like the 1970s take on a futuristic space station with mechanical futuristic flourishes. The entire game is well designed, and the art is easily appreciated, despite the constant stress you are put under.
I would say that the number of hours was the game’s biggest downfall. Upon reading up on this game, my partner warned me that many people were complaining about the 15-or-so hours it took for them to complete the game, but we waved this off as a bridge we would eventually get to, but I wish we had listened. I would recommend playing this game for the first half, but I wouldn’t suggest getting too invested, given that the payoff is hardly worth it.
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Six simple steps that will ensure you don’t die within the first thirty minutes
Horror movies always seem to star stupid people. Regardless of age, location or occupation, every starlet seems to think it’s a great idea to find shelter in an abandoned basement, investigate the screaming sound coming from the attic, or adopt that one creepy little orphan whose only protection is the Young Offenders Act. If this Hallowe’en you find yourself bewildered with a horror movie-esque attack, here are six steps that may help you make it all the way to the credits.
1) Remove yourself from isolated areas
So you live on a farm? Move. Axe murderers tend to be drawn to lonely wooden structures and small town environments. Cornfields, abandoned asylums and wooded areas are a no-no. Keep to more densely populated city areas and travel in packs of 10 or more. If you cannot avoid being in an real viagra pharmacy prescription isolated area, have a car on hand to drive your ass the hell out of there in case of an emergency (preference for SUVs and Hummers).
2) Don’t investigate weird sounds
If you hear a weird sound coming from the floor above you, CALL THE POLICE. I don’t care how many triathlons you’ve done or how badass you think you are, you are not equipped to battle a psychopath ghost living in your attic. You are not Scooby Doo, you are not Bill Murray, and you are not that lady from Long Island Medium, you are no match for the paranormal.
3) Carry a charged cellphone
One of the luxuries of the twenty-first century is the easy access to portable electronic devices. Use your goddamn phone to call for help. You also want to make sure you have enough battery power for your caller ID to work. The last thing you need is to answer a call from an “Unknown Number” and find yourself being stalked while manoeuvring a babysitting gig. That being said, another good tip – don’t be a babysitter.
4) Don’t lean against walls or doors
When the floorboards in the next room are creaking and you don’t know how to check if the coast is clear, leaning against the wall/door for a better listen is not a good idea. Because there you are all huddled up next to your plywood framework and all of a sudden, you’re getting shanked in the spleen with some next Kill Bill blade. Unless your home is made of steel, you are not going to be safe from the person in the next room.
5) Don’t have sex
Ok guys, so I know when you’re scared and lonely you feel the need to get handsy, but there are several important considerations when it comes to fear-induced-freak. Don’t be caught pant-less, you will find yourself running for your life semi-nude. Don’t get pregnant, because you will give birth to a demon child. Don’t have sex, because you will get chlamydia and you will die.
6) Double tap
It’s never dead when you think it is. Give it another hit.
We Need To Talk About Kevin
Starring: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly
Directed by: Lynne Ramsay
4.5 out of 5
Myles Herod
Entertainment Editor
We Need to Talk About Kevin never declares itself safe.
Lynne Ramsay’s disturbing film, based on the novel by Lionel Shriver, is a ferocious adaptation that scratches and spits, breaking through its own words with sound and fury.
Its soul, and suburban hell, is the ever-widening schism of a mother and son at war, where the camera forces us so close we retaliate with a scream or an instinct to duck.
It’s challenging, but not without its brilliance. The movie opens with an overhead shot of bodies and bedlam in a sea of red. Beginning in a wash of provocative crimson, the celebratory bath of tomato juice recounts the films lead, Eva (fearlessly played by Tilda Swinton), as we gaze onto her surreal memory of Spain’s La Tomatina festival.
From there, the picture embraces an unconventional streak, fashioning episodic situations where humour is black, terror is real and life’s realities are a succession of small deaths. There’s no question that the film is expertly crafted and haunting. Just don’t call it wholly digestible.
Ramsay’s choice of altering the film’s chronological order may throw some for a loop, but in lieu of a straightforward narrative, the film affords greater contrast and power.
Years having past, we encounter a depleted Eva rebuilding her life in the wake of a heinous tragedy involving her son. Once an esteemed travel writer, she postponed life to marry the affably goofy Franklin (John C. Reilly), and to give birth to their first child, Kevin (equally creepy Jasper Newell and Ezra Miller).
Through Eva, we confront shards of Kevin’s upbringing, every moment infected with uneasiness. The merciless child grows into a darkly vacant teenager who effortlessly manipulates the love of his father and sister (Ashley Gerasimovich). Eva never buys it.
Ramsay’s interpretation builds against the pair’s incurable bond – her maternal intuition and continental desires with his violent, sociopathic impulses.
There are moments when Kevin’s eyes convey a disquieting abyss, frightfully employed as the film bravely goes all the way in depicting the horrors of a high school massacre. For the most part, however, the film wisely resists genre slumming, accepting violence without bleeding it. The abstract nature of Ramsay’s direction is astonishingly bold, and welcomed from a woman who’s been absent for eight years.
Saturated in red, the colour pervades the film’s look at every turn. Spattered across walls and windows, strawberry jam oozes, red ink soaks – Eva’s life literally becomes stained as she copes amidst a haze of pills and town hatred.
If anything, the film should be viewed as a series of parts. Surely, there are images here I will never forget.
There’s the undeniable absurdity (and the sound) of Kevin savoring a white, rounded lychee fruit as his parents grieve over the loss of their daughter’s eye. Or the eerie Halloween sequence that finds Eva driving down a residential street of costumed ghouls, darkly photographed and bizarrely accompanied by Buddy Holly’s song “Everyday.”
Some may balk at the individuality of a film like We Need To Talk About Kevin. What is its purpose? Frankly, I feel it hits America where it dare not to look – commenting on its banal culture, its moral disengagement, and the unfathomable question afflicting every parents worst nightmare: Is it possible to hate your child?
Take Shelter
Directed by: Jeff Nichols
Starring: Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain
4 out of 5 stars
Myles Herod
Entertainment Editor
There can be something positively terrifying about a performance that makes you tense. What Michael Shannon miraculously achieves in Take Shelter goes beyond that, and into embodiment.
With courage, talent and vulnerability, he takes the viewer into the mind of an early-onset schizophrenic, revealing a man torn between apocalyptic premonitions and his relationships with family and friends.
The movie opens on Curtis (Shannon), a construction worker with growing concerns about the clouds and greasy rain that persistently loom over his land. Inside his household we enter domestic normality, where his loving wife, Samantha (Jessica Chastain), attentively upholds family breakfasts and points of discussion. Together they raise their deaf preschooler in what feels like parental conviction and not plot contrivance.
Early in Take Shelter, we become familiar with Curtis’ work routine, as well as his loyal co-worker, Dewart (Sean Whigham). Similarly, Samantha’s outside life is explored, as she divides her time between entrepreneurial interests and her daughter’s sign language classes.
The film shifts though, and soon Curtis begins suffering from night terrors that consume his consciousness. The dreams retain similar motifs of unruly storms that turn familiar faces into murderous souls. In one instance, a vicious nightmare involving the beloved family dog leaves Curtis with a mysteriously sore arm and distrust towards the canine.
When his visions cease to curtail and begin to extend into real life delusions, the separation between prophecy and lunacy symbolically merge with the construction of a backyard storm shelter.
The film is so delicate, so entrenched in Curtis’ intensity that you hold your breath as his social sphere starts breaking away. Events of grave consequence take effect and soon the heart of the film splits into two unsettling realisms: the whispering gossip of his sanity, and the confidence of his own doom’s day suspicions.
Michael Shannon inhabits his extraordinary performance with a scary charisma that cannot be described, but observed. He knows he has a problem. He knows he needs help. When the story reveals a family history of mental illness, he seeks counseling. Hopelessly, the sessions amount to no more than empty compassion and textbook rhetoric, leaving Curtis, and us, in a state of despondency.
The movie excels through its braveness, which requires our empathy as we interpret the decisions made. Why does Curtis insist on building something so absurd at the risk of losing everything? How the film balances dream logic with the disintegration of relationships, marriage and finances is one of its great strengths.
It is precisely the brand of drama that defines Take Shelter, investing heavily in emotional paranoia, as well as post- 9/11 angst and uncertainty.
For a picture of such power, it is refreshing to see the restraint that director Jeff Nichols brings to the narrative. Wisely, he avoids religious aspects of Curtis’ apocalypse and keeps it very close to life, making forces of nature vengeful and destructive right until the very end.
Many films have addressed the plight of mental health, but few rarely seem to live them out. This one does it with a quiet fearlessness that has you thinking days afterwards.
Paranormal Activity 3
Directed by: Henry Boost, Ariel Schulman
3 out of 5 stars
Marco Filice
The evil shadow-demon offers some recycled tricks and a few new treats in Paranormal Activity 3. Since there are hardly any horror flicks out, this will most likely constitute one’s choice for thrills at the Cineplex. And I have to say, the film it makes up for the lack of Halloween spirit Hollywood has invested this year.
The plot is introduced with a pregnant Kristi, who was a character in the previous film in the series. She is unpacking with her husband, Daniel, who is video recording their getting ready for the baby. Enter her sister, Katie, with a box of VHS tapes. Remember those things? Hopefully you do, because their grainy quality is used throughout the rest of the movie.
A foreboding hint that the tapes are not filled with warm nostalgia is caught in Katie’s face. She gives her sister the box and leaves. The story begins.
It reaches back to 1988 and follows another young couple, Dennis and Julie, who have two daughters. They live in an affluent-looking home, which appeard to be inherited from Julie’s creepy grandmother.
The rich-family-being-scared-to-death plotline is not such a cliché here; their prosperity, which was investigated in Paranormal Activity 2, is important to the story. It turns out that there are roots to the tale that prove far more sinister than you’d imagine. The story’s plot holds disturbing events, leading to a finale that will make you forget your own name.
I caught Paranormal Activity 3 on opening night, and with the theatre filled with obnoxious under-agers, even their goofiness couldn’t spoil how spooked I was. Now, it takes a lot for me to hold onto the arm rests in nervous anticipation. But, believe me, I did just that.
This was especially true during scenes that featured a new technique introduced by the filmmakers.
Dennis, Katie and Kristi’s new parent-figure (we’re left cryptically out of the loop as to what happened to their real father), is an amateur videographer. He cleverly manipulates the mechanics of an oscillating fan and places a camera on it. It slowly scans between the main entrance, the living room, the kitchen and back again.
The audience views only what the camera sees for brief moments, and you’re expecting anything. I won’t go into details, but this gadget utilizes something naturally eerie that I haven’t seen in horror movies before.
This film is a part of the new generation of reality-based recording. In a time of uploading videos from smartphones to the web so that all can participate in our lives, the movie places you in the subjectivity of the characters.
In horror classics, movies allowed us to merely observe the tension. Now we’re involved through the home-video lens – as culprits, even. We not only see, but experience the horror through the characters.
In short, Paranormal Activity 3 causes both characters and audience to react in the same way. This is as real as it gets.
The Thing
Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton
Directed by: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.
2.5/5 Stars
Sean Hardy
It’s hard to imagine what films today would be like had flicks like those of the Saw and Hostel franchises never seen the light of day. Given our generation’s clear preference for excess over nuance in almost all aspects of life, this must seem like a far-fetched notion indeed.
Realistically speaking, it’s hard to articulate what the modern horror genre would even be without its familiar buckets of gut-wrenching gore, aside from quick cuts of scared teenagers running around and occasional cameos by washed-up rappers. The real question, though, is what this suggests about us. Are we losing our ability to be “cleverly” entertained?
Shocking though it may be to some of us, there once was a time when “horror” implied more than mass murder portrayed in stunning realism, when aspects of the genre like suspense and atmosphere weren’t just remnants of an earlier time.
On my way to see The Thing this weekend, I prayed that a modern remake of the original classic would do something to bring back the finesse for which horror was once known. I probably shouldn’t have got my hopes up.
By now you surely know the story in some form, whether by way of the earlier Thing movies or one of the innumerable copycats for which they are at least partly responsible. It’s the plot upon which so many modern horror movies have been grafted: research team goes to isolated outpost in remote part of the world to investigate discovery of unusual specimen, specimen goes absolutely apeshit, expendable characters start dying. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Without giving away too much, the specific plot structure of this movie and its predecessors is such that the plot is set up to be suspenseful right from the get-go, with each of the various characters not knowing which of the others to trust.
On paper the premise is perfectly calibrated to allow for maximal suspense, and in a way the movie attempts to play to this very obvious strength. The action is generally well-shot, the Antarctic imagery is striking and the acting is passable, even convincing at times.
Things go off the rails with the over-the-top gratuity, which, given the modern horror landscape, probably should have been anticipated. When it comes to the film’s moments of actual violence, absolutely nothing is left to the imagination, ultimately diminishing the effect that they could have had were things implied rather than spelled out in disturbing detail.
I did not, for instance, need to see someone’s face disintegrating in real time in order to be properly scared. To be honest, the most powerful moments are those in which bone-headed brutality is eschewed for moments of terse, muted tension between the central characters.
Such moments make it all the more devastating when said characters ultimately meet their end. In this respect, the movie succeeds; the problem, sadly, is that moments like these are few and far between.
What, then, are we to learn from The Thing? Well, if most of my sentiments thus far have been any indication, you shouldn’t expect much. As it stands, The Thing represents a discouragingly standard foray into the modern, ultra-graphic horror genre.
Though it is not without its strong points, it ultimately falls short, offering little in the way of thematic innovation or departures from the trusted modern formula of gratuitous violence and gore.
Hobo With a Shotgun
Directed by: Jason Eisener
Starring: Rutger Hauer, Brian Downey
3 out of 5
Myles Herod
Entertainment Editor
If you are going to make a horror film, go for broke. Indulge in its foreboding dread, accentuated shadows, excessive gore, and immoral integrity. Just don’t cop out. While it is frustrating to see a film cheat its intended audience, there is nothing worse than it ruining an entire genre.
Horror films of the Northern American mold have suffered greatly. Neutered, branded, and left sanitized by the PG 13 rating, an ever-growing conservatism has sought to make these pictures tamer and more profitable to the masses.
Like watching nostalgia played through a dusty VCR, Hobo With a Shotgun arrives seemingly out of the sewers from a parallel 1980s universe.
Delivering a psychotic fervor, it is comparable to the low-budget, grindhouse pictures it obviously pays homage to. But Hobo With a Shotgun does it better, hell-bent on offending anyone and everyone. Depraved visions of exaggerated gore, mass murder and human entrails wash the screen like an abstract painter to their canvas. Hobo will repel and sicken many, but therein lies its vivacity as a true trash pastiche.
Based off a fake trailer made for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s movie Grindhouse, Hobo has been fleshed out by director Jason Eisener without noticeable lag. The story follows a nameless hobo (Rutger Hauer) riding a train into HellTown, a city of poverty and rampant corruption, controlled by a villainous cretin named Drake (Brian Downey).
Alongside his berserk sons, Slick (Gregory Smith) and Ivan (Nick Bateman), they find gratification in breaking bones, setting children on fire, and drowning their noses in ludicrous amounts of cocaine.
While mayhem engulfs the city streets, the hobo, with the help of a gold-hearted hooker (Molly Dunsworth), decides justice comes with a shotgun, one shell at a time.
Cranked to the limit, from acting to camera compositions, the film leaves little time to digest everything that is thrown on screen. It is not enough to be slightly deranged in order to conceive a movie like Hobo With a Shotgun – it takes passion.
A vagrant who disposes of scum with a shotgun is too easy. To succeed on this level of vileness takes a sense of humour, juggling tones of comedy, graphic violence, and the human condition.
Apart from providing the crackling vigilante storyline, writer John Davies instills Hobo with some unexpected sentiment and oddly memorable monologues from the steely-haired Hauer. Consider the scene in which he is taken back to the hooker’s bed to rest after having a knife thrust into him. As he is given a shirt to wear, the emblem of a cartoon bear adorning his chest causes him recall thoughts on the animal, developing a quiet exchange between both characters, not feeling forced, but instead creating depth.
Credit not only Eisener and Davies for this balance, but also the conviction of Hobo’s cast, invigorating characters beyond the point of simple sketches. Rutger Hauer, a superb talent for the past four decades, creates a lived-in being.
The camera catches his worn face and eyes as Eisener smartly uses it to the film’s advantage. Oddly enough, Hauer’s hobo does not thirst for blood intentionally; he only wants money to buy a lawnmower to start his own grass-cutting business.
Hobo With a Shotgun not only pays tribute to 1970s and 1980s exploitation films, it mirrors the direct-to-video heyday verbatim. Encouraging jeers and cheers, stylistic devices are brilliantly supplied to back the excitement by way of a muffled synthesized score and cinematography saturated in Technicolor graininess.
Although a hard 'R' rating comes accordingly, Eisener thinks outside the box to earn it, devising new ways to destroy the human body with absurd mutilations, shot- gunned castrations, and an ice skate to the torso – all done with tongue firmly placed in cheek.
Some may condemn the film’s perpetual bad taste, but to do so would be to miss its bizarre blending of humour and nightmarish visuals. It is not just enough to have a man decapitated with barbed wire; the film takes it further, having a woman in a white bikini soak and gyrate in his blood.
