Hasta La Creative!

Sometimes when you watch an ad, you can’t quite believe it’s real. Then you learn about the backstory, and you watch it again, and you still can’t wrap your head around it.

Take Johnny Dronehunter, the hero in a real new commercial for a real new shotgun silencer, from a real company called SilencerCo.

If you are, like Johnny, a man who drives through the desert in aviators and a beat-up ’80s-era Cadillac, then finds himself in combat with a fleet of flying surveillance robots, then this is the shotgun silencer for you.

If your response to growing privacy concerns around the increasing use of drones by domestic law enforcement doesn’t include overtones of a paranoid dystopian fantasy in which people run around shooting drones out of the sky, then it’s still pretty amusing to watch the clever melodrama of a well-produced drone-hunting video. It even feels a bit like a Tarantino-esque take on grindhouse cinema (even though the Cohn brothers’ No Country For Old Men is more famous for its silenced shotgun, it was also quite a bit more serious).

If you were worried that Johnny Dronehunter might not be coming soon to a town near you, SilencerCo’s CEO tells Vice’s Motherboard that the brand plans to film future Johnny Dronehunter ads in cities and suburban settings, but he admits it’s harder to shoot and blow up robots in less desolate locales, because, you know, laws. 

If you’re still wondering why anyone would need a shotgun silencer in the first place (especially in the desert), it’s because shotguns are loud, which means it could give away your position to the government. Just kidding. Shotguns are incredibly loud, and a suppressor can help keep it from damaging your ears while shooting clay pigeons or hunting live animals. Though it’s generally worse for the duck.