Reviews: "Insidious" and "Hobo with a Shotgun"
First up, the new James Wan movie.
And I also checked out "Hobo with a Shotgun."
And I also checked out "Hobo with a Shotgun."
I'm guessing you believe in spirits being able to do physical harm to living beings. The reason I am guessing so is because I don't believe spirits can do living beings any harm, so I don't find movies like Insidious or Poltergeist scary. I'm not saying they're not good films, I'm just not scared of movies like this. I'll have to give Insidious a try though. Have a good weekend, Brad. : )
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I don't know about that. I'm a hard skeptic/atheist, I definitely don't believe in spirits at all, yet being scared by them isn't ruled out in the context of a movie, suspension of disbelief. It's not like I believe in zombies, monsters, vampires and werewolves either. Not saying most movies are scary for me, but some are no matter what are my beliefs. It largely depends on the context too (listen to them on a silent night, alone, in complete darkness).
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You got a point there, but still I just don't find evil spirits or "ghosts" all that scary. I love a lot of zombie films, but I don't find them scary either. I guess to each their own.
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We'll your exsperince with this movie(Insidious) is the same as mine when I went to see The Messenger(an really shitty movie) and the reason I won't watch another PG13 horror movie in theaters ever again! What little dialogue there was I couldn't hear because of every creepy shadow I had a 14 yearold girl in the far back of the theater screaming in my ear! I would like to see this movie now though because you make it sound interesting the last few 1,000 haunted house movies that've come out have just been that same thing with jut a different generic cast over and over again but if you say this is different I'll give it a view!
Hobo with a Shotgun? Never heard of it but I'd still give it a view as I'm a Troma fan too! But I ain't paying $10 to watch it! I'll wait till it's a used DVD at Hasting's 1st!
Finnally... Hey look it's Loyd!
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Hey man, love the Insidious review. I was planning on seeing it tomorrow anyway, just for a lark, but now I'm actually looking forward to it!
I gotta ask, what was your opinion of The House of the Devil? I don't think I've ever seen or heard you mention it.
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Brad, did you mean The Exterminator 2 or The Executioner Part 2?
And speaking of Spaghetti Westerns, there's a Korean movie The Good The Bad The Weird that is just amazing. If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend it highly!
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Hobo With A Shotgun looks like a 70s film from the poster on Netflix. I liked Death Proof. I thought it was decent for what it was. No need for apologies on taking time off from doing your "scripted" work. You deserve a vacation every now and then just like the rest of us.
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I wasn't very interested in Hobo With A Shotgun anyway; didn't look that great other than the titular character, tbh. However, I have been incredibly hyped about Insidious, which your good review of the film has only served to increase.
However, the country I live in has the most annoying habit of either never having a film in theaters, or releasing it a year after every other country has it on DVD. So, I suppose the question I wish to ask is, do you think Insidious would work on the small-screen? Could it be just as scary sitting at home watching it?
Thank you.
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I'm very surprised that you did see Hobo without knowing that it was an adaptation of a fake trailer for Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse contest.
By seing the original video, you'll know what to expect here: pure nonsense and Troma-like over-the-top graphic scenes...
Really, it wasn't made to look like a Cannon film but more of an extreme "Rodriguez's Grindhouse" type of movie.
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I think he knew, he mentioned that he saw the original fake trailer but not the actual trailer for this film.
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Hey Brad, just wondering, where did you see Hobo? I thought it wasn't getting released in the US 'til May?
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It has a Video on demand release until it's limited theater release. You can watch it on iTunes for 5 bucks in HD.
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Insidious doesn't look bad. The PG horror tag doesn't bother me. The Hole was a PG and I liked it more than a lot of recent American R (15 or 18 here in Britain) and unrated horror movies.
I watch a lot of horror films and it's not like the 70s or 80s. There are good American horror movies but in terms of gore and impact France and Korea are delivering better films. And being a Brit I've got to say that Severance, The Cottage and The Descent are better acted and have better scripts. Having said that I loved Hatchet 2 which has one of the funniest most tasteless kills I've ever seen.
I would rather see a good PG film than a bad harder film.
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I LOVED Insidious. I saw it with my mom yesterday, and it definitely scared the crap out of her. At one point she even jump in her seat in a bit and grabbed my arm xD . It was very scary, and I liked the story a lot. It really did have an older horror movie feel like you said, which is what I loved about it. Go see it, it's a very entertaining film.
P.S.-I'm glad you noticed the Jigsaw cameo, I was wondering if you saw it xD
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"Metal Gear?"
A Hind D?
A severance camera?
Oh wait... You just mean gear that is made of metal. Don't DO that to me!
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I disagree with your assessment of "Hobo with a Shotgun." The film makes a lot more sense when seen as a parody of grindhouse films (or a Troma movie), rather than a straight one. I do agree about the two dudes in medieval armor and the octopus though, that was a bit much. Also, I'm pretty sure the opening sequence was meant to spoof "Cannibal Holocaust," the music sounds almost exactly like the Riz Ortolani soundtrack and there are lots of aerial shots of wetlands and marshes.
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Also, "Shotgun" technically IS a shot-on-shitteo movie as it was shot on the Red Mysterium camera. Honestly, it may have been insanely over the top but it captured the grindhouse spirit a lot better than "Grindhouse" did (at least in terms of how sleazy it was).
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"Planet Terror" captured the grindhouse spirit a billion times better than this movie did. When I think of a 70's style grindhouse film, I don't think of Troma, which is what this movie was like. Also, when I say "shot on shitteo," you know what I mean =)
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Don't get me wrong, I liked "Planet Terror," but it wasn't very grindhouse. It was much more in the spirit of a John Carpenter movie. I also liked the first half of "Death Proof," in the bar, but the second half (a great deal of which was these annoying girls talking in a diner) was the pits.
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I agree with you on that. It would have been one thing if it was interesting dialogue.
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I actually loved Hobo with a Shotgun, probably my favorite film of the year so far! I was wondering what you had thought of it since it seemed to be right up your alley, and I'm really puzzled as to why you didn't like it...
I liked how unlike the other recent grindhouse movies, this movie didn't try to look as esthetically pleasing. This movie was filthy! The violence was done in an over the top way which made it funny, but at the same time it was so brutal that it shocks and becomes uneasy to watch.
I liked how over the top it all was. Granted, the characters could have been a little less caricatured, but I thought it really made the Hobo's actions justifiable given how completely evil the bad guys were, and what disgusting state the city was currently in. I also like the robot characters and the squid gag, precisely BECAUSE it is never explained and only hinted at. It's absurd and hilarious!
The cinematography and the use of color is also worth mentioning, I found it reminiscent of some Tobe Hooper films, of which I'm a big fan.
BTW, Nick, I am glad someone else picked up on the Cannibal Holocaust music reference. I loved it! I also loved how they used the theme for The Racoons during the end credits.
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"Vice Squad" is filthy. "Don't Go in the House" is filthy. "Ms. 45," "The Exterminator," "Savage Streets," "Hardcore," those movies are filthy. Those are true sleaze flicks, and are awesome. "Hobo with a Shotgun" is nothing but an over the top cartoon.
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Yeah, "Hobo" is very cartoonish and over-the-top, but then so is "The Story of Ricky," and Ricky is 100% pure grindhouse. I do see where you're coming from though, Brad, it works much better as a spoof of vigilante movies, but you can't compare it to stuff like "Ms. 45" and "Thriller: A Cruel Picture," which are REAL grindhouse movies, particularly as "Hobo" contains very little sex/nudity (which seems unfortunate as the main female character is a prostitute).
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Thinking about it some more, I'd say that Troma was the logical development of the grindhouse concept, particularly due to the corporatization of movies as the 80's progressed, so technically Troma is "grindhouse," particularly as its an independent company. To put it simply, grindhouse lived on as Troma films. Stuff like "Troma's War" or "Combat Shock" I find to be completely grindhouse as hell, and dead-serious too, so it's not all stuff like Toxic Avenger. "Hobo with a Shotgun" I think was the logical extension of that, it was made by people who grew up on Troma as Troma Films were made by a man who clearly grew up watching nothing but vintage 70's porn.
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I should have been more specific. In the review, when I say Troma, I don't mean movies they simply distributed, I'm talking about movies actually made by Lloyd and Herz. That kind of over the top acting; which Troma does incredibly well. In "Hobo" it just kind of annoyed me. The villains grated on my nerves.
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I liked Hobo with a Shotgun a lot. It is more parody more than genuine exploit movie. It did remind me of Troma with the way the bad guys acted and the plot and the weirdness, but I don't really like Troma much where I did like this.
Perhaps because it was a parody, (But then I do know the director does go over the top with most of his other stuff too) but also some of these over-the-top offensive scenes were done with a little more style than they otherwise could have been. (Like the hospital or the bus scene)
Rutger Hauer was fantastic, and there were some really cool or funny scenes.
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Rutger Hauer was great. I liked all the scenes with him and the hooker, and the scene with him and the babies at the hospital.
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I liked hobo with a shotgun, partly because I viewed it more as retro to the 80s rather than the 70s. The part with those two biker guys and the octopus reminded me of movies like escape from new york where there were underground mutants that randomly popped up but were never fully explained. Another reason that I probably enjoyed this more than you did is because there are a few in jokes, references and cameos specifically appealing to Canadians, like the Raccons end theme playing during the end credits.
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You nailed it; this movie really appeals more to Canadians because of the many references to Canadian Pop Culture (the Bricklin car and the Raccoons theme for example). I'm surprised Brad didn't go for it like nuts, I figured it was really up his alley.
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That's pretty much how I viewed it too, like an 80's Golan Globus film, just not a very good one.
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Going to disagree with you on Insidious. I didn't find it overly scary and I also thought they overused the jump scares. The ending was also obvious from miles away. The movie just felt like it was designed for a very base low brow audience that none of it felt on the level of better scary movies recently. Honestly, would've preferred a lot less viewing of the spirits and more fear of the hidden which the first half of the movie had. Once they went over the top the movie suffered.
When the guy finally astrally projected that scene was also handled awfully. Thought it was hokey and laughable and greatly lowered all good will I had on the movie till that point.
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I for one think these unscripted Vlogs are well placed. And I think that having these as spacers between the scripted shows makes it all the more worthwhile when I do see an 80s Dan, Kung Tai Ted, or Brad Tries show. Keep up the awesome work!
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I personally was laughing my ass of at insidious myself but i don't know different strokes different folks.
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Did you see "Source Code" yet? The first 2/3rds of the movie are quite excellent and intelligent. The explanation of what "Source Code" is I found very fascinating. The logic in the movie falls apart in the last 20 minutes though, which seemed very tacked on anyways. If they cut off the last 20-25 minutes, then it might have been a great movie.
SPOILER: They also pull a "Sum of All Fears" with the movie and make the "terrorist" a nerdy white college kid, for the sake of political correctness, instead of middle-eastern terrorists, even though that's what they hint at throughout most of the film.
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I think you may have been a bit hard on "Hobo..." Brad. If you look at the Grindhouse Trailer that had the over the top Troma style acting in it and I think they were trying to stay true to that, it gets a bit thick but it didn't bother me. I think they were trying to mesh the Troma villians like in "Nuke em High" with the post "Warriors" theme street gangs of the 80s like in "The Exterminator II" (Please do a snob video on that one)same with the over the top violence. I thought it was a fun flick and nice to see Rutger Hauer in a staring role again. Any thoughts?
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Terrence Cain is right on this. If you don't believe in spirits/ghosts stuff it is just a movie. So you can't be scared either. And he was also impressed by the paranormal activity movies. It's clear to the point.
I cannot wait for the two snob episodes!
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Just saw Insidious tonight. Before that, I watched the first 30 or so seconds before I went, just to see how you reacted to it. I was pumped to see it. My roommates didn't want to, since it had a "PG-13" rating, and... you know.
This movie was very creepy in parts... but when it dropped the ball... Oh, god. They showed too much of the red "fire" faced demon-thing. The drawings the kid and paranormal experts drew of it were creepy as hell, as was the quick view we had of it behind the husband's head. But when we saw the dad & kid in it's lair... the lair was hilarious. Tip-Toe Through The Tulips was scary the first time, but the second made the scene hilarious. Good movie, but it had it's stupid points. It also pumped me up for Scream 4 during the trailers!
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I liked "Hobo With a Shotgun" a bit more than you did. Though it would be a hell of allot better in a packed theater with some booze and friends. I think it should be considered to be a parody, similar to what they did with "Black Dynamite". I do agree that they needed at least one good actor on the villains side, I found myself imagining what it would be like if they got Dennis Hopper for The Drake. Rutger Hauer was kind of on his own for this and needed somebody with some real gravitas to play off of. Going back to the villains; the problem isn't that they are one note, it's that they are all the same note.
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My question is How much do you guys get per view, from the ads? I ask cause I have a shitty internet connection, and somedays I end up seeing an ad upwards of 9 times just to finish one video, cause of timeouts. Hell I'm just curious if that helps.
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Hobo with a shot gun was AMAZING. You sir, and backwards.
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I actually LOVED Hobo. There were a few parts that went too far like the bus bit (if you've seen it, you know what I mean). It felt right at home as a tribute to Troma, yet Rutger Hauer added alot of heart to it that made the film memorable (even if some of the sympathetic dialog was a bit lame). I'd say its well worth the $10 I paid for it.
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I got a shotgun.
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I don't know about that, Terrence. I'm Christian myself, I believe in spirits and yet most movies focusing on ghosts and demons don't even raise my heart rate or cause me to so much as bat an eye (The Exorcist and Dead Silence being two exceptions simply because the cinematography and pacing was just so darn effective ) . Insidious, despite being an excellent film, did not scare or chill me.
Honestly, I think it's more a case of whether or not the director knows what they're doing and how to get the most out of it.
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Wow, Brad. I honestly think you're WAYYYYYY off base about Hobo With A Shotgun.
I'm sitting here watching you talk about it after i've seen it, and even though you're still citing very specific examples that are in the film, I still find it almost impossible to believe that you're talking about the same film I've seen. Like i'm watching someone talk about a film in a language I can't understand or something.
Or at least to say that I think you're just insanely negative on it for reasons that make absolutely no sense to me, because you seem to be shitting on it for everything that's right about the movie, and I'm just blindsided by having absolutely no idea where you're possibly coming from.
It really just sounds to me watching you talk about "Hobo" that it just flew completely over your head. Like a 3rd grader criticizing quantum physics.
Or, perhaps maybe more like way under it, to be more accurate, maybe like a quantum physicist critiquing a 3rd grader's written essay on a college expectation level.
Yeah, I'd go with that one, really. I just think you're looking at this movie completly from the opposite end of the spectrum that you're supposed to be looking at it from.
To be honestly, I don't think you've been this dazzingly wrong about a film since Scott Pilgrim vs The World.
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Just because I love the movies it's paying homage to doesn't mean I HAVE to love "Hobo with a Shotgun." 90% of the characters in the movie annoyed the crap out of me, and that isn't "going over my head," that's just my reaction to their over the top performances. Something that Troma does a lot better than this film.
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Brad would've liked Hobo much more if it was shot by one of his College reject buddies. On a digital camera.
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HA! I didn't even GO to college!
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Hah! Very nice compliment to Spoony's Snob review. Nailed Spoony's verbal ticks, and his constant gestures, and how he repeats himself oddly every so often, and how he name drops tons of actors/writers/directors all the time, even got his laugh down pretty well.
And they still managed to be pretty entertaining reviews, too! Well done, sir.
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The only way to see Insidious is with easily frightened black people. That's how I saw it. To top it off, there was even an annoyed fat white guy that yelled at them to shut up and then stormed off.
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Just saw it, it was soooo freakin' good! It's one of the scariest movies I've ever seen! I don't know if it will be scary on repeat viewings, because I did feel a lot of it was jump scare stuff, but always GOOD jump scare stuff. But, I wonder how scary it will be when I know it's coming. Still, the imagery was very creepy, so I think it will always be one to avoid watching when home alone, ha.
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I have problem with a lot of these retro-grind house movies. They're too self-consciously tied to a trash aesthetic. The real thing was people with no budgets trying to make the best possible film. The new stuff is more like an art-house joke. Even when they're entertaining like Planet Terror there's a certain smugness to what's on screen. It's like with Machete, entertaining, but with that cast and that budget, why not write a good script and make a good all action romp?
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I saw the movie hobo with a shotgun at the toronto premeir andpersonally it was my favorite grindhouse film i have ever seen. Yes it was over the top and modern but i loved it. The plague was amazing. It was a great review u did but u were abit to hard on it
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you are a FOOL! hobo with a shotgun is awesome! watched it after a couple of beers and a couple of bongs and ucking loved it, its supposed to be shitty, its supposed to be overacted,''HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN'' come on, what were you expecting. to anyone who hasnt watched it yet, WATCH IT, dont listen to this loser, its by far better than planet terror.
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SPOILERS
i saw insidious and i just found myself hoping for more. they mention that the farther his spirit is away from his body the easier it is for his body to be overtaken. but the devil creature thing locks him up in the attic of his house? i also assumed they would have to bring the childs body back to that old house in a race against time thing, but nope. also i really wish that paranormal old lady was the lady trying to take over the fathers body, she sent him there so she could overtake the body. i just think there could have been so much more done than they did. maybe i was expecting too much
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I liked the movie a lot too, although I am a bit surprised that it actually "scared" you.
You watch many, many more horror films that I do, but they don't actually "scare" me as if I was a 10 year old girl.
w/e
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Insidious is fantastic! I really didn't know what to expect when I walked in there and it exceeded my expectations. One of the scariest bits for me was near the start where the wife sees the figure walking back and fourth outside the window and then, well you know what happens after wards. And of course the scene with the little ghost boy standing there listening to what is very jolly music but like you said it isn't very jolly anymore, now its fuckin creepy. Oh and I also spotted the little drawing on the chalk board
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Oh yeah, did see Insidious with some friend.. Talk about a shitting your pants party for the first half of the film. When the father started to walk around in the " spirit world" a bit of the spookyness did go away, since we now could see everything. before that it was much more a "OH JESUS! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THINGS?!" feeling. But yeah... Pants where ruined that night
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in hobo with a shotgun the "robots" which are known as "the Plague" might be getting a spin-off and i cant wait to see a full movie of them. i say give it another open minded try with friends.
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Brad, Love your review on Insidious, but I have something to tell you, Legend of Hell House is a poor film. It's an ok / good film, but nothing when compared to the book it was based on, they changed a few things which I believe would have made it ten times scarier. Check it out, it's called 'Hell House' by Richard Matheson
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I loved Hobo with a Shotgun. It felt genuine, I really don't get how people say it's a parody of the genre, when it isn't. Even the director said he was aiming to make an honest to the genre, pure grindhouse flick. It was over-the-top, pure campy entertainment and I enjoyed every last second of it.
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Fun fact: I went to school with the actress, Molly Dunsworth, who plays the prostitute and I even had a crush on her in middle school. Her father plays Mr. Lahey in the Trailer Park Boys.
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