Did you know that the movie business is a desperate flea-pit dominated by soulless creepbags who will push any lie that they can get away with in order to take your money? If not, that startling revelation forms the main metaphor of this story of a sentient rubber tire that rolls around the desert and kills people while a distant audience observes the carnage through binoculars. Don’t call it a horror film; it’s not. “Black comedy” covers it a little better, but there aren’t a lot of laughs here, either. I want to like this movie, but I don’t and I think I figured out the problem: it’s the opening monologue. Sure, it grabs our attention because it’s so unconventional and it makes a strong case for how irrationality (ie. things that happen for no reason) is essential to storytelling. I couldn’t agree more. But it’s not a groundbreaking point. Any Stephen King fan could offer you the same wisdom—and be less pleased with themselves for doing it. The opening sets up a dry, phony academic tone that the movie never overcomes. We’re not about to watch a story, it says; we’re about to watch a filmmaker’s exercise on a simple theme that he doesn’t seem to trust us to notice on our own. Thrilling. If this is supposed to be bad, then I guess they did a good job of that. Two stars, mostly for the scenes where the tire shakes in concentration before it makes peoples’ heads explode and a likable appearance by a grizzled, sixtysomething Wings Hauser as the smart one in the tire’s onscreen audience.