Most movie trailers are created to advertise an amazing new film that’s about to hit cinemas. Not so Hobo With A Shotgun. One of the now infamous five ‘fake trailers’ crafted in honour of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s 2007 Grindhouse double bill, Hobo was a total fake-out.
“We were hanging out at a pizza joint where me and John [Davies, writer] would pitch movie ideas back and forth,” recalls director Jason Eisener. “We were there with my friend Joe who was wearing a scruffy shirt and he had just bought this Airsoft Shotgun that shoots plastic pellets.
“We were pitching ideas and he spoke up and said, ‘Why don’t you make a movie about me?’ John just looked him up and down and said, ‘What, a hobo with a shotgun?’ It was like a light bulb went off.”
The year was 2007. In a case of perfect timing, cult director Rodriguez had just launched a contest (co-sponsored by the SXSW Film Festival) that called upon film fans to make a Grindhouse-style movie trailer in the vein of his Planet Terror shlock-and-shock revival.
Eisener didn’t skip a heartbeat. He had an idea. He had a director (uh, himself). And he had a competition to win. The very same day that the contest was announced, he started shooting Hobo…
