Rubber scraper

Rubber is a 2010 English-language French independent horror-comedy film rubber scraper a tire that comes to life and kills people with psychokinetic powers. A group of people in a California desert are gathered to watch a “film”. A sheriff named Chad points out that many moments in cinema happen for “no reason”, that life is full of this “no reason”, and that this film is an homage to “no reason”.

Somewhere in the desert, a tire named Robert suddenly comes to life. After standing upright, he discovers he has psychokinesis and tests his newfound powers by making animals and inanimate objects explode. Robert spots a woman drive by and attempts to use his powers on her, but he only succeeds in making her car stall before he is run over by a truck. Robert locates the woman at a nearby motel and enters the room next to hers. He kills the motel’s maid after she throws him out of the room. Sheriff Chad arrives at the scene to investigate the string of murders.

Meanwhile, the in-film audience, having starved for two days, are given a turkey by the accountant, but they begin to suffer intense abdominal pain. Robert comes across a group of people burning a large pile of tires, resulting in him going on a killing spree for three days. Chad lures the tire into a trap using dynamite on a mannequin dressed as the woman. Robert blows up the mannequin’s head, but the dynamite fails to detonate.

During the credits, the opening scene plays again, but this time from different angles, revealing that Chad is not speaking to anyone. The effects of the tire moving were done via practical effects such as remote controls. Director Quentin Dupieux has noted that due to the inherent “emptiness” of a tire that making a remote-controlled tire was difficult as “you can’t really hide the mechanisms well”. During the writing process, the tire, Robert, was designed solely as a bad guy with no redeeming qualities. While shooting, however, Dupieux determined that this was the wrong approach realizing “there’s nothing evil about a tire” based partly on early camera tests. Robert was reworked to be “more like a stupid dog”. The film begins with Lieutenant Chad making a speech about how events in movies often happen for “no reason”.