Mr Oizo Returns with Slasher Flick Starring Tyre

Movie deaths involving cars are nothing unusual. Be it driving into a canyon ('Thelma and Louise'), driving into other cars carrying sassy ladies (Quentin Tarantino’s quite horrible 'Death Proof'), or enjoying a crash a bit too much (David Cronenberg’s infamous twist on auto-erotica, 'Crash'), motoring fatalities have become a large and varied part of film history. But Quentin Dupieux, otherwise known as the French dance music producer behind ‘Flat Beat’ and its accompanying puppet Flat Eric, has filmed a twist we never saw coming: a slasher film in which the serial killer is – wait for it – a tyre. Named Robert.

Dupieux’s film, entitled Rubber, features a rogue tyre abandoned in the desert that – for reasons best left to your interpretation – springs to life, teaches itself how to move with nary a wheel (let alone an axle) to help it, and discovers a skill for laying waste to whatever crosses its path. You couldn’t accuse the film’s production team of retreading old plots. The film is drawing responses ranging from bemusement to utter disbelief. Helpfully, one internet commentator at The AV Club – named Monkeylint (presumably a pseudonym) – supplied a ‘review’: “All the buzz over this film gave me inflated expectations, but after watching it, I found it kind of flat. I’ll spare you the misery; peal on out of there if this flick rolls into your cinema.” In the unlikely event of it attracting a UK distributor, the film should be available in 2010.