I DO think people are missing the point, even it makes fans like us come off like "dorky snobs". What you fail to understand is that it isn't the intention of the director to make a "good" movie and it just becomes "cult" because it failed. The intention is to create a movie that is trashy as a statement of style.
I have seen some posters mention Troma films, and while I agree Hobo feels like it may have taken some influences, I think Troma films are generally more non-sensical than this one. Hobo actually has a workable plot, albeit, a ridiculous one.
What about filmmakers like John Waters, who made such exploitation films as "Pink Flamingos" and "Mondo Trasho" intentionally trashy? These films are a testament to what some may consider "bad", yet fascinating entertainment to others.
Some people go for the strange and bizarre. You can't get that from 5-star, blockbuster, Hollywood formulaic or even good indie film making. The filmmakers have to be willing to throw everything out the window, work at a relatively lower budget and just enjoy the journey and the statement they are trying to make.
What I like about grindhouse, trash horror, cult horror, avant-garde and exploitation films depends on the movie I am watching. Generally, I like the over-the-top, the strange or bizarre if the movie is serious, but other times I may enjoy it because the film is darkly hilarious or maybe it is because I get to see things that I normally wouldn't see in a movie that plays it safe. Movies like "Eraserhead" and "A Clockwork Orange" are surreal and bizarre. Other films like "The Car", "I Spit On Your Grave" and "The Hills Have Eyes" have become horror cult classics, especially the seminal "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre". Everyone knows how over-the-top entertaining Sam Riami's "Evil Dead" movies are, yet they aren't going to win any Oscars any time soon. Instead you have pure style, innovation and a willness to put it all on the line for the sake of being extraordinary.
What we have here is akin to a carnival freakshow or an attempt to look through a window to the Twilight Zone. It feels like the seedy underbelly of film making. Even movies like "Assault on Precinct 13" and "Escape from New York" have a similar feel, even though they are generally more widely accepted than movies like "Basketcase", "Frankenhooker", "Driller Killer" or "Corpse Grinders". There is that feeling that you are in another world that is freaky, slightly twisted and surreal. It isn't meant to be "good", it isn't your typical film making, but that is the point. These movies are the raw entertainment and play with our odd fascinations.
To make a movie like Hobo, "good", would make this movie "bad", if that makes any sense. It would just go against the point that I feel many of these haters are missing. If that makes me a dork, a fan, an artsy fartsy snob, then so be it. Just don't take away my right to enjoy the stranger side of life. Go back to the formula of what you consider good (whether it be in movies, music or otherwise) and I'll continue to look for innovation where I can find it.
reply
share
JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies
13 years ago
I DO think people are missing the point, even it makes fans like us come off like "dorky snobs". What you fail to understand is that it isn't the intention of the director to make a "good" movie and it just becomes "cult" because it failed. The intention is to create a movie that is trashy as a statement of style.
I think "good" needs to be clarified there, because the intention here IS to make a good film, a modern, over-the-top one in the style of the many "grade Z exploitation" films of the past, many of which are themselves good films. It's rather that the intention isn't to make a film that people will think is good
when those people want Oscar material, or believe that "good" is delimited by the mainstream conventions and goals taught in film schools, or want serious, realist dramatic content or social or political or philosophical commentary at least as a subtext, and that they'll agree with. In other words, there are people who love films like those made and/or distributed by companies like Something Weird and Troma (and not limited to that--those are just good examples of this), and not because they think those types of films are not good and they're laughing AT them or something like that (although there are cases that fit that, but it's a mistake to parse ALL or even the majority of those films in that way). Rather, they reflect an alternate aesthetic.
Hobo With a Shotgun is a good film, and meant to be one, (and it's meant to pay a bit of homage to past ones, etc.) in that alternate aesthetic.
People who are not fond of that particular alternate aesthetic, and who also aren't fond of copious gore in that mode, probably won't like
Hobo With a Shotgun, and people who are not very familiar with or "attuned to" that aesthetic probably won't "get" the film, either.
http://www.rateyourmusic.com/~JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies
reply
share