Rubber

Self-reflexive horror movies are a dime a dozen, but it’s safe to say that ‘Rubber’ is the first to star a psychotic, psychokinetic tyre. This French-made, English language subversion of American exploitation movie tropes tells the minimalist tale of Robert, an abandoned tyre who achieves first consciousness then telekinetic powers and embarks on a desert killing spree. Meanwhile, on a nearby hill, spectators gather to observe Robert’s exploits and comment on them. Writer-director Quentin ‘Mr Oizo’ Dupieux must think his movie is a pin-sharp surrealist deconstruction of genre clichés in the guise of a knowing midnight-movie romp: a movie to laugh with and learn from. He’s wrong. ‘Rubber’ is the worst kind of indulgence, a snickering, self-satisfied (albeit lovingly constructed) hipster in-joke which never comes close to justifying its own existence.