Tyred Of Slasher Movies?

If you've seen the trailer for Rubber (below) or read the synopsis you'll already know that the movie has a bat shit premise; a car tyre comes to life and goes on a killing spree. It's quite a surprise upon seeing Rubber that the aforementioned premise is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to lunacy. On the surface it's a slasher movie in the tradition of Texas Chainsaw or Halloween with a small community terrorised by an unstoppable killer while the police scramble to control the situation. And using it's absurd twist of murderer (the tyre cause it's victims to explode) it does this very well...but that's only half the movie.

Rubber is really an arthouse flick...less concerned with the plot making sense but rather to make it's audience think. The other narrative in the film concern an assembled audience who watch events unfold from afar using binoculars, as if they've gathered for street theatre or an outside movie experience. The line between what is fictional and not, what is real is not is gradually eroded that characters in the film are interacting with the audience and the audience is interacting with the plot of the film...that of the killer tyre.

Rubber is asking us how an audience interacts with a film. How much do we believe in the reality of what's going on onscreen and how far can a film push the story into absurdity before we dismiss it as unbelievable. It examines the group experience of going to see a film at a cinema or in front of the TV, the affect of advertisers and the selling of rubbish food to the audience and how viewers tend to shout at the cinema screen in an attempt to change already filmed events. And it's a parody on movies themselves mocking the killer rising from the grave and how Hollywood exploits original movies by duplicating them.

At one point in the movie a character addresses us, the audience directly, breaking the forth wall stating that in all movies, even the great ones, things happen for 'no reason'. Rubber knows this and pushes that right to the very limit. It will undoubtedly frustrate many, but it's definitely one of the smartest and most original movies you'll see all year.