HOBO WITH A TRASH CAN *** USA 2015 Dirs: Mark Charles Adams, Tonjia Atomic, Lloyd Emmons, Steven A. Grainger, Christopher Kahler, Kyle Leonard, Claire ‘Fluff’ Llewellyn, Vincent Marshall. 86 mins
Trying to lead a noble existence, hobo Bo (Christopher Kahler) looks to avoid the vulgar treatment afforded to him by various members of the community due to his status while also coming across several random items. Each time he goes to touch it, he becomes aware of the item’s unique backstory: a woman becomes convinced her perfect husband is an alien looking to take over the world, a paper bag is out to eat everyone it can come across, a man tries any means necessary to have sex with his girlfriend, scientists try to track down the ultimate biological weapon, a lonely ghost tries to make friends with the workers at the restaurant it haunts, and a morally dubious means of retaining your honor comes into pay.
Overall, “Hobo with a Trash Can” is an immensely fun grindhouse throwback anthology. That the main wraparound serves as a clever means of instigating the stories here, from the hobo touching the wasteful item and being launched into the story that follows, and in keeping with the unrealistically low-budget on display keeps this moving along nicely. The stories themselves are generally fun, cheesy, and rewarding enough for fans of the style while featuring more than enough homages to the sci-fi and genre fare of the past to keep the enthusiasm going. Each of the segments usually has something going for it, from a creative concept to a fun gore-centerpiece, a solid shock sequence, and even some timely jokes that are a welcome sense of humor here to everything so that the lone dud of a segment is the finale which goes for serious in tone when it has no business being in this kind of film feeling out of place as a result. Granted, all of this is done with a budget under a thousand dollars (with the main trash prop centering all the stories in the first place being done for just a single buck) so this isn’t some high-end genre piece at all, but if you’re in the right mindset and aware of that this has a lot of fun going for it.
Review by Don Anelli
HOBO WITH A TRASH CAN is out now on Prime Video UK, Prime Video USA and DVD