The high concept premise makes RUBBER sound like a uniquely pared-down variation on supernaturally hostile car movies like THE CAR and CHRISTINE. The range of juicy (and wonderful) exploding heads suggest an 80’s-infused splatter comedy. Truth is, this distinctive, eccentric, vaguely pretentious black comedy has a peculiar tone that’s closer to David Lynch than early Sam Raimi – with an added dose of THE TRUMAN SHOW’s take on fabricated reality. It’s not for all tastes but its apparent desire to join the ranks of Cult Movie-dom would seem destined to succeed.
You know straight away that this is not going to be a standard gore movie about a killer tyre decimating a desert town. Director Quentin Dupieux breaks the fourth wall immediately, with a kind of post-modern Rod Serling type introduction in which Lieutenant Stephen Spinella addresses the audience straight to camera with the first words “Why is the alien in E.T. brown?”. His opening monologue, also pondering why no one in THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is shown going to the bathroom or washing their hands like normal people, leads to the exclamation “The film you are about to see is in homage to the ‘no reason’”.
Turns out that the “audience” he is addressing isn’t strictly us : it’s a group of “spectators” who will end up watching the bizarre action we ourselves are watching, albeit in the desert with binoculars like some kind of twisted live drive-in screening. They act us a Greek chorus commentating on the action as we see it and consisting of character types like bitchy teenage girls, movie nerds, abrasive black women and cynical paraplegic Wings Hauser (always a welcome presence in any movie) – it’s Hauser who proves the only survivor when this “audience” falls victim to a mass poisoning.
What they and us watch unfold is the sudden emerge of a tyre named Robert who slowly comes to life and gathers momentum, building an appetite of destruction when he discovers he can telepathically cause things to blow up, beginning with bottles, scorpions and rabbits. The tyre breathes, drinks water, ogles a babe having a shower (“You think that tyre’s going to get laid?”) like a slasher movie killer, gets his own motel room (he gets thrown out by the maid while having a shower), has flashbacks, watches stock car racing on TV and moves on to killing people who anger him.
Well shot on a tiny budget and technically superb in its execution of the various tyre scenes (the old-school FX and digital embellishments are terrific and seamless), RUBBER is droll and deceptively low key. Undeniably, the premise is a one-joke, short-film one, but even the movie’s loungers are charming. Spinella is a delight as the deadpan detective who has to reveal to his fellow cops that the killer they’re seeking is a tyre (sample questions : “Is it worn?” / “Is it black?”), while Wings Hauser gets the movie’s defining line at a key point : “This scene makes no sense at all!”.
Cult movie audiences of a certain inclination will relish moments like this for years to come, along with the movie’s best line “It’s not the end, he’s been reincarnated as a tricycle!” It’s all very enjoyable right up to its modest but lovely punch line : a newly formed tyre army about to descend on Hollywood. For once, a swift sequel is really desired.
– Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
