N.S. filmmaker's fake-movie trailer to open for Grindhouse

Shot trailer in Dartmouth for $150 — now rubbing elbows with Rodriguez

Last Updated: Tuesday, April 3, 2007 | 4:49 PM ET

CBC Arts

An indie filmmaker from Nova Scotia is getting the boost of a lifetime: his latest work will be screened across Canada as an opening act for Grindhouse, the anticipated dual-film collaboration from hit directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez.

Hobo With a Shotgun, Dartmouth director Jason Eisener's gritty, violence-filled movie trailer for a non-existent film, will be added to 150 prints of Grindhouse set to hit theatres across the country on Friday.

Hobo with a Shotgun will be screened as part of the Canadian theatrical release of Grindhouse.
(Alliance Atlantis)

"It's been a wild ride," Eisener, 24, told CBC Arts Online on Tuesday. "I just need a second to sit down and think about it."

Grindhouse is an homage to the seedy, 1970s-era U.S. theatres that featured a program of lurid, low-budget films typically from the zombie, slasher and blaxploitation genres.

The double-bill will feature the Tarantino-directed Death Proof and Rodriguez's Planet Terror, with several other faux movie trailers by the likes of Eli Roth and Rob Zombie sandwiched in between.

Won competition at SXSW film fest

In March at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Eisener's 1970s-inspired trailer about a vigilante homeless man won a online competition introduced a month earlier by Rodriguez and the website aintitcool.com.

"My films have mostly played in Halifax. To go there to see it play for a new audience — for people who are not friends, all these new people — and to see them react the same way as people do at home, that was very exciting," Eisener said.

The low-budget director said he and some friends came up with the Hobo with a Shotgun premise a few years ago over pizza in Dartmouth.

When the Grindhouse contest was announced, he and regular collaborators Rob Cotterill and John Davies dusted off the idea and got to work.

With a budget of only $150, they spent five long days shooting Hobo, which stars rookie actor Dave Brunt — a regular at the comic book shop where Eisener works — in the title role.

The rest of the cast includes actor Mike Jackson (who portrayed Trevor on Trailer Park Boys) and "a lot of friends and just people around town here who wanted to get involved in what we were doing," Eisener said.

After another five days of editing, they had produced a one-minute-59-second opus that Rodriguez ultimately declared the winner.

Eisener, Cotterill and Davies flew down to Austin in March, where they were welcomed with open arms by movie fans who "totally appreciated the same sort of movies we did," Eisener said.

In talks to have trailer on Grindhouse DVD

Since the win, Eisener has been living a bit of the Hollywood life. Last week, he was in Los Angeles rubbing elbows with the cast and crew of Grindhouse following the film's Los Angeles premiere.

Eisener was in Los Angeles last week for the Grindhouse premiere, along with directors Quentin Tarantino, left, and Robert Rodriguez, right.
(Kevin Winter/Getty)

He is in negotiations to have Hobo included on the eventual Grindhouse DVD as well as entertaining inquiries about extending his trailer into an actual movie.

He also has several other projects on the go, including a documentary about burlesque and a feature film called Streets of Domination done "in the style of old, grungy gang movies."

In the meantime, Eisener will be under a local spotlight on Wednesday when he is scheduled to attend a sneak preview screening of Grindhouse in Dartmouth and talk about the making of Hobo with a Shotgun.