I don’t know whether Hobo with a Shotgun qualifies as an homage, a genuine grindhouse masterpiece or just the goriest, most degenerate Canadian film to ever play in decent theatres. But once you see it, you won’t forget it. And I wouldn’t want to; this tale of a homeless man pushed too far is worth it just for the line, “I’m gonna cut welfare checks outta your skin.”
An expansion of a fake trailer entered in a contest for the enjoyably unhinged Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez pair-up Grindhouse, Hobo operates on a budget that wouldn’t have paid for Kurt Russell’s pomade. Using most of its cash on an actual actor, Rutger fuckin’ Hauer, the movie apparently spent the rest on blood and entrails. There isn’t one area on the human body that isn’t brutalized in Hobo’s 86 minutes; there isn’t one obscenity in the English language unmuttered; there isn’t one depravity unseen.
But you also get a surprising amount of flair. Director Jason Eisener is a real talent, using a grittily gorgeous color palette that recalls giallo at its most vivid, and if his script is intentionally silly, it also has a sly wit (at one point, a newspaper headline reads, “Hobo Stops Begging, Demands Change”). While the movie is constantly cranked to 11, Eisener takes everything to another level altogether with The Plague, a pair of armor-clad hit men who may or may not have killed Jesus Christ (if a freeze-frame of their lair is any indication).
Finally, we have Hauer, a pro relishing every moment and owing the screen. It’s his show, and he is glorious. His impassioned speech on the troubles of life, given to a hospital-room filled with newborn babies who get more and more terrified as his rant continues, is some sort of classic. —Corey Redekop
As the title so blatantly gives away, 
The second of the four-film series proves as frothy and accessible as the first, if you can get past the Asian stereotype who pops up at a Chinese restaurant where Nancy and friends are short by 65 cents. Thus, she, Ted (Frankie Thomas, whose character is suddenly no longer named Ned), Ted’s little sister and her pal Killer literally sing for their supper, and the crowd digs Killer’s killer Donald Duck impression. 
The trouble starts when super-cute Goth girl is sacrificed by a quartet of pathetic Satanists, which causes the demons that necessitated the previous massacre to rise up from wherever they went the last time this all went down. In the end, the only person who can stop the demons from raising the Antichrist is the hot, 50-something version of the hot schoolgirl who took care of the problem the first time.
