Blimey. I'm not sure I have ever seen a flim as packed with blood and gore as Hobo With A Shotgun. It is a Grindhouse movie which assaults the senses from the first minute to the last.
I've only just finished watching it and I feel absolutely drained.
Jason Eisener has gone straight back to the 1970s, with every detail, reminiscent of those incredible B-movie horrors which belonged in flea-pit cinema.
Even the movie poster looks like it was torn from a lamp-post.
From the off, with its Burt Bacarach-style opening music and period credits, Hobo takes us back.
And, as soon as the wizened Rutger Hauer takes to the screen the violence begins.
Initially, Hauer's hobo is a spectator to the scenes of anarchy. He is an onlooker as the city's arch villain Drake (Brian Downey) and his sons Slick (Gregory Smith) and Ivan (Nick Bateman), rip the head off their first target.
In fact, it is only when he sees a pretty prostitute (Molly Dunsworth) being threatened does he take up the vigilante baton with the words: "You vultures circle the city tearing off the flesh off everything that is innocent.''
With that, he starts his clean up and anyone from corrupt cops to padeophile santas are likely to meet the goriest of ends.
Hauer is grizzled and glorious as the Hobo. Eisener has created a character that has a moral compass but is clearly a bit demented. Hauer wrings everything out of him.
Downey, meanwhile, prompts violence like a circus master. He plays to the crowd like a villain in Batman but with 1,000 times the level of violence.
Hobo With A Shotgun is absolutely not for the squeamish. Heads roll, literally, and there is more red stuff than in a ketchup factory.
But there is a steady storyline and Eisener, for all his concentration on maintaining the Grindhouse look, still creates tension in his key scenes.
The acting is deliberately over-the-top but fits within the context of the film.
I am almost embarrassed to say I enjoyed it and am going to rate it at 7/10
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