"Rubber johnny" is a 2005 experimental horror short film Directed, edited, and animated by Chris cunningham. with the music being a remix of the song "Afx237 v7" by Aphex twin/Richard D. james. with camerawork by rob bliss, prosthetics by neil gorton, and assistance with edeting and animation by Alison carter and angie taylor respectively. Rubber Johnny was released on DVD by WARP (Record company) on 20th June and 12th July 2005. The latter release included a book on the film containing 40-odd pages. The credit scene actually has a spelling mistake saying "musc taken fron drukqs".
Premise[]
the short film is about a wheelchair-bound boy who morphs and moves to an Aphex Twin song. The experience gets weirder when he takes cocaine and everything gets out of control.
Cast[]
- Percy butterford as Johnny's father
- Elvis as the dog (the dog owner being caisa lindblad)
- Chris cunningham as johnny
Production[]
Shot on DV night-vision, the film was made in Cunningham's own time as a home movie of sorts, and took three and half years of weekends to complete. Cunningham explained that the effect of an exploding head was made using "just a tangerine and Plasticine with a banger inside it". He created some effects in his own kitchen instead of relying on CGI.
Release[]
as mentioned above, Rubber johnny was only released on DVD by Warp who owns all rights to music by Aphex twin and other artists like Squarepusher, boards of canada, etc.
Reception[]
Pascal Wyse of The Guardian referred to it as "virtuosic grossness", stating, "there is more fleeting shock than real haunting. Perhaps, in all the synaptic mayhem, there is just no room for the viewer to contact their own demons." Treble.com listed the film in its "10 Terrifying Music Videos", calling it "both hilarious and terrifying".
Writing for The Telegraph, Chris Campion asserted that the video was "like a Looney Tunes short for a generation raised on video nasties and rave music".
S. McKeating of Stylus Magazine awarded Rubber Johnny a 'B+' rating, lauding it as an "exceptionally entertaining odd short film" but only for viewers "with the right frame of mind". He additionally demanded that Cunningham "take it one step further and give us an hour and a half of warped material".