Rubber (2010)
Directed by Quentin Dupieux
In the California desert, the adventures of a telepathic killer-tire, mysteriously attracted by a very pretty girl, as witnessed by incredulous onlookers.
21 connections found
View:
21 films that influenced Rubber
What critics say influenced Rubber
In one scene, reminiscent of “The Red Balloon,” it admires its own vulcanized countenance in a mirror.
In a scene of epically comic personification and an unsubtle nod to "The Red Balloon," the circular villain rises to life as the spectators watch from afar, then proceeds to roll through the landscape and slowly build toward its killing streak.
Rubber could have been a modest horror novelty, a wicked, malevolent version of The Red Balloon.
It's also a horror film, a critique of cinema past and present, an absurdist satire of traditional film tropes, an homage to David Cronenberg's Scanners, a comeback for Eighties icon Hauser, and a feature-length avant garde film unlike any other.
Initially tentative, the tire discovers it has telekinetic powers and soon works its way up the food chain, from rabbits and crows to clueless humans whose heads, a la Cronenberg’s “Scanners,” explode like watermelons.
With just a few jerks of its worn tread, Robert discovers that it can make nearby objects explode, suggesting what might have happened if David Cronenberg’s Scanners had been filmed at Canadian Tire.
So it blows up animals and people’s heads, like David Cronenberg did in “Scanners” 30 years ago.
In The Blob (1958) an ever-expanding ball of jelly terrorises a small town.
It opens like Beckett or Ionesco with a stage manager (Jack Plotnick) setting up chairs and a sheriff (Stephen Spinella) climbing out of the trunk of a squad car to deliver a speech about all films — “E.T.,” “J.F.K.,” “Chainsaw Massacre” ‒ possessing an element of “No Reason.”
One of his examples is about Oliver Stone’s JFK, in which -- the cop “reminds” us -- suddenly, out of nowhere, for no reason, someone shoots the President.
It begins with a policeman speaking directly to the camera, telling us "all great films without exception create an element of 'no reason," using weird examples like "The Pianist" and "JFK," because they were the last two films in Dupieux's Netflix, I guess.
Advertisement
In The Car (1977) a diabolically possessed automobile does the same thing.
The story they’ll see involves a tire that slowly rouses itself from a junkyard and, after triumphing over a few random objects (a plastic bottle) and critters (a scorpion) by rolling over them, realizes that it can kill bigger prey the same way Amy Irving explodes John Cassavetes’ head in The Fury, albeit in a far less operatic fashion.
Imagine Stephen King’s “Christine” and “Maximum Overdrive” with nothing under their hoods.
It’s a variation on Spielberg’s “Duel” and King’s demonic gas-guzzlers told from the perspective of ‒ hold onto your carburetors, kids ‒ a killer tire.
Advertisement
Imagine Stephen King’s “Christine” and “Maximum Overdrive” with nothing under their hoods.
Imagine “The Hitcher” without the psychotic Rutger Hauer.