Hauer stars in N.S. indie Hobo With a Shotgun

Buckets of blood, gore and a grizzly-looking Rutger Hauer have been all over the streets of Halifax and Dartmouth, N.S., as filming on the indie thriller Hobo With a Shotgun gets underway.

"We're being very naughty and very dirty and very ugly. We're not trying to make anything pretty. We're not trying to charm anybody. We're saying this is an ugly movie," Dutch actor Hauer told CBC News.

Raised on comedy-laced, splatter-heavy horror films like Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series and Peter Jackson's Dead Alive, Hobo director Jason Eisener says he is aiming for the same tone.

"This film gets pretty gory. There’s a lot of violence just because the movie is very extreme," he said.

Hobo With a Shotgun, which began shooting in Halifax last week, tells the story of a homeless man who becomes a vigilante.

Inspired by the low-budget B-movies and thrillers of the 1970s, Hobo With a Shotgun got rolling three years ago when Eisner and his collaborators, John Davies and Robert Cotterill, teamed up to make a fake movie trailer for an online contest involving cult filmmakers Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez.

The Nova Scotian trio's bloody, ultra-violent trailer for Hobo With a Shotgun won the contest.

Picked for Grindhouse

The prize was being included as part of the Canadian theatrical run of Tarantino and Rodriguez's dual-feature Grindhouse, which also featured other faux trailers by the likes of Eli Roth and Rob Zombie. The Hobo trailer was also included on the Grindhouse DVD.

Eisner's previous films, which have screened in Halifax and at the Sundance Film Festival, typically feature a cast of locals. However, landing an actor like Hauer — a familiar and prolific face of horror, thriller, sci-fi and other cult TV and movies — boosts Hobo With a Shotgun to a new level.

"Working with Rutger Hauer is amazing. I have to say, I was really intimidated at first because I've only worked with local actors. I’ve never worked with someone who’s had so much experience," he said.

Eisner hopes to premiere Hobo With a Shotgun sometime in 2011, preferably at the local Dartmouth film event The Thrillema, which is dedicated to screening 35-millimetre prints of cult films.