10 Movie Openings That Wanted To Piss You Off
1. The "No Reason" Principle - Rubber
Quentin Dupieux's surreal 2010 horror-comedy Rubber is, in a word, insane. If the premise of a killer tire that blows people's heads up with its telekinetic powers seems appealing to you, know that Dupieux has far more on his mind than that mere schlocky setup suggests.
The film opens with a deeply bizarre sequence in which a host of people gather in the Californian desert to watch a "film" - that film being the very one we ourselves are watching.
One of the individuals is a police officer, Lieutenant Chad (Stephen Spinella), who walks towards the camera and address us, the viewers, directly.
He discusses the fact that many moments in the history of cinema - E.T. being brown, for one - happen for no reason, that most great movies contain a strong element of no reason to reflect the fact that things happen in life for no reason, and that this film itself is an homage to the no-reason principle.
This was Dupieux throwing the gauntlet down to audiences - actively attempting to piss off as many people as possible who expected a more conventional slasher movie, while also weeding out those who would actually find his experimental vision meaningful.