Hobo, holding the shotgun he chose over a lawnmower. For real.

There's a sequence just prior to the climax of Hobo with Shotgun, an homage to exploitation films from the 1970s and '80s, that pretty much sums up the entire film. The titular homeless hero (Rutger Hauer) has been on a rampage, employing his weapon of choice to rid Hope Town of its street trash, including an abusive pimp, a Bumfights-style filmmaker, and a pedophile dressed as Santa.

But the town's criminal kingpin, Drake (Brian Downey), has had enough. In his dimly lit lair, as three naked women lash a man hanging upside by chains, Drake says, "When life gives you razorblades, you make a baseball bat with razorblades." Then he brandishes exactly that, slashing it across the hanging man's stomach, such that his intestines spill out like snakes fleeing a fire.

Now cut to a school bus full of children, which Drake's two sons, Slick and Ivan, board and then torch with a flamethrower. We see one child, already burned black, screaming for help behind the rear door.

And now cut to a local TV report about the bus massacre. Ivan barges into the studio and hurls a hockey skate into the newsman's chest, where it remains.

That's how Jason Eisener's film operates: Going too far is not nearly far enough. I never dreamed I'd see a shotgun-mangled penis represented, let alone fondled, on the big screen. But those dreams, among many others, were realized by Hobo with a Shotgun, which was originally conceived for (and won) a fake trailer contest at the SXSW film fest. There's more gore in any 15-minute stretch than in the entirety of Machete, to which this film will inevitably be compared, but there's also more humor. At one point Abby (Molly Dunsworth), the hooker with a heart of cold blood in Hope Town — which is alternately referred to as Scum Town and Fuck Town — tells Slick to "lay off" a kid he's harassing in an arcade. Slick, wearing Wayfarers and a varsity jacket bearing his name, turns to her and says, "The only thing I'm going to let slide is my dick in your pussy."

Your reaction to that line will determine exactly where you stand in relation to Hobo with a Shotgun.