Coming Soon to a Theater Near You: Hobo With a Shotgun

by Josie Raymond · 2010-09-07 10:56:00 UTC
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This summer has seen plenty of movie monsters — from piranhas to predators to vampires. A new trailer though, relies on quite a different breed to spook moviegoers: a hobo with a shotgun. Not only is that the character, it's the whole title. And the whole plot. Based on one of the faux trailers from the 2007 exploitation celebration Grindhouse, Hobo With a Shotgun is now a feature-length B-movie starring C-list actor Rutger Hauer. Watch the (extremely gruesome) trailer below.

What do you think? We write a lot about exploitation of the homeless, but this, to me, is something different: homelesspoitation. Hauer is the protagonist. He's a vigilante, fighting against unjust actors in a dystopian future. Like Machete, which opened last weekend and jovially mocked Mexicans while earnestly taking anti-immigration loonies down a peg, this film has the potential to show, however Hollywoodized, the evil forces working against the homeless.

In one scene of the trailer, a man sets a dumpster containing a mother and her baby on fire. On the outside of the dumpster is spray-painted: "Death to the Homeless." As preposterous as the whole plot is, parts like this hit a little too close to reality. It was just last month that the National Coalition for the Homeless released a report showing that killings of the homeless are at the highest point in a decade. The idea of the homeless taking up arms also scares me, especially since I've seen people advocate it online, even implicitly on this site.

The trailer opens with Hauer delivering a monologue to a nursery full of newborns. "I hate to tell you this," he says. "But if you grow up here, you're more likely to wind up selling your bodies on the streets or shooting dope from dirty needles in a bus stop. And if you're successful, you'll make money selling junk to crackheads. And you won't think twice about killing someone's wife because you won't even know it's wrong in the first place. Maybe you'll end up like me ... a hobo with a shotgun!" Cue the mayhem and corn syrup blood and guts.

Photo credit: hobowithashotgun.com

Josie Raymond is a Change.org editor who has reported from the streets of the South Bronx, written for several magazines that folded (not her fault) and fixed thousands of typos.
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