Greetings, all. Ambush Bug here with a special edition of AICN HORROR: ZOMBIES & SHARKS. I had a chance to talk with Oded Fehr, the star of the new killer car film SUPER HYBRID, last week. The star of THE MUMMY series, RESIDENT EVIL, and of course, DEUCE BIGELOW: MALE GIGOLO talked about what it was like being chased by a car with an appetite for blood. But before we talk with Mr. Fehr, here’s my review of the film!
Available on DVD & BluRay this week!SUPER HYBRID (2010)
Directed by Eric ValetteWritten by Benjamin Carr
Starring Shannon Beckner, Oded Fehr and Ryan Kennedy
Reviewer: Ambush Bug
Now, I know there will be those who scoff at this film as soon as they hear the premise: a car that thrives on blood is trapped in an impound garage and stalks the employees one at a time until they join forces and fight back!
OK, I know, the premise is goofy. And believe me, there are a few scenes where folks are hiding behind parked cars and stone columns in the garage that are a bit humorous, but if you’ve seen films like CHRISTINE, MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE, the underrated THE CAR, and of course DUEL, you know that there is an awful lot of fun to be had with this premise. In this day and age where folks are busting their asses trying to invent a car that runs on just about anything other than oil, it’s not too farfetched that a vampire car would be made, now is it?Yeah, I know it is, but still, SUPER HYBRID is a hell of a good time. The premise is so simple, but Eric Valette adds a lot of claustrophobic scares by setting this one in an abandoned parking garage. Anyone walking around at night in one of those multi-level underground garages knows it can be a creepy place. Valette does a great job of making the best of the tight spaces and twists and turns. He also does a great job with an obviously limited budget, never shooting for the stars and keeping the horror right in the garage for most of the film. Valette also probably saved some dough by giving the car the ability to morph into any kind of car, so this creature is some kind of automobile version of The Thing with folks not knowing if the car next to them is real or a monster out for their blood.
Contrived? Yes. Goofy? Yup. Fun? You betcha. I wasn’t expecting much from SUPER HYBRID and was thoroughly surprised at the restraint the director had to keep the effects believable and looking good. Oded Fehr turns in a fun performance as a dick mechanic, and the rest of the cast (though unknowns) do a pretty decent job as well. I also loved the fact that little to no explanation is given as to what the car exactly is or where it came from. Is it a product of a vengeance-mad Al Gore still sore about losing the election? Is it a four-wheeled death machine from the stars? Who knows? Scoff all you want, but this is a fun little fright fest that has seen all of those killer car films of the past and builds off of it.I had a chance to talk with one of the stars of SUPER HYBRID, Oded Fehr, about this film. Here’s what Mr. Fehr had to say…
AMBUSH BUG (BUG): Hey Oded, how are you doing today?ODED FEHR (OF): Good, how are you doing?
BUG: I’m doing really well. So tell me a little bit about SUPER HYBRID. I actually saw the film last night and it’s a really fun movie, can you tell me a little bit about it, just the premise for the readers?
OF: Basically it’s kind of an underground garage where police impound cars and any kind of cars from accidents and so on are all stored there and the garage is going through a nice facelift, so it’s all closing down for a few weeks and nothing in it works of course and it’s underground, so there are no cell phones that work. And a sort of an alien in the form of a car, a shape shifter car, kind of gets caught inside this garage and in order to survive it needs to feed on human flesh and it does so. We basically try to survive. I play the boss basically, the guy in charge of the garage. Shannon [Beckner] who is the female lead is sort of a car junkie mechanic and yeah, that’s it.
BUG: Like I said, it was a really fun film. What I really liked about it was the fact that you guys are trapped in this garage and so it makes it a really claustrophobic film that you guys are just trying to avoid this car, which can turn into other cars, so there’s kind of like a TRANSFORMERS vibe to the film, but it also reminds me of some of those old horror films, like THE CAR or CHRISTINE or MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE, where cars come alive and are after us. Did you see those films? Are you familiar with those films?
OF: You know what, I don’t know what the name of the movie is, but that movie with the truck, the horrible truck where you never see the driver and the truck is trying to kill…BUG: DUEL? The Steven Spielberg movie.
OF: Yeah, that’s a very scary and disturbing film.
BUG: So who was the director for this project?
OF: Eric Valette, a French… laughs) I could spell it for you, but I never called him in his full name, so…
BUG: (Laughs) So what kind of direction did he give you guys to be with these cars chasing after you the whole movie?
OF: He was great, you know. I think he was great. The nice thing about this project is that it was very much I think kind of…we all kind of pitched in and it was kind of an ensemble working together and if you’re asking for specifics, I can’t remember that well, because we shot it a couple of years ago, three years ago whenever it was. I just remember him being very nice to work with and very good to work with and yeah, he was visually very good, very good with the actors, and just an all around nice guy.
BUG: I’m sure some of the effects were put in afterwards and without giving too much away, what was it that you guys were reacting to when you saw the stuff that you did see in the film?
OF: Well nothing, we were reacting just to a regular car and kind of pretending that it feels different and so the cool thing was that every time it was a different car, sometimes it was a truck…sometimes it was a sedan, a station wagon, a sports car…but you know, we were inside this…what we did was we filmed in Regina, Canada and they used an old warehouse or warehouses. It was a huge cement structure and it felt as claustrophobic as the film does and you know we had all of these cars and motorcycles all running around and driving at their high speeds and so on, so it had the effect you know. It was kind of scary.
BUG: Yeah, well you are kind of known for working on some of these genre films like THE MUMMY films and things like that, what is it about this genre that attracts you to it? OF: I am trying to have the same career as Bruce Campbell.
[Both laugh]
BUG: Okay.
OF: You know what? I’m trying to become that guy.
BUG: Well, you are on your way.
OF: I don’t know, man, THE MUMMY was like my first job, then the RESIDENT EVILS came after that and I don’t know, I mean it’s just one of those things. The work that comes my way…you know, I think…when I first read the script, it was kind of different from what we ended up shooting by the end of it and they were very open to work on making Ray a little bit more annoying and a little bit more colorful, so we worked on the script together after I got on board, but a lot of it is also, for me, who it is that you are working with you know and whether I like the people I’m working with or not and when we first met with Eric and Oliver [Hengst] and Elizabeth [Wang-Lee] who produced it, we really liked each other. It was a great meeting. It was one of those things that we got very excited about each other, you know, and it was like that during the entire film. We just had a blast filming together and we knew what we were getting into was very much a genre film and it’s not going to be everybody’s cup of tea, but we were hoping to make something funny and something that doesn’t take itself too seriously and for those people who like that kind of genre for it to be a fun movie.
BUG: I think you guys definitely succeeded with this one. Just to wrap things up, what final words do you want to say to the Ain’t It Cool News readers here about SUPER HYBRID? OF: Just have fun. Enjoy it. Have fun and don’t get too scared with the vehicles you see around you, you never know.
[Both Laugh]
BUG: Okay, well thanks a lot. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me and again, it’s a great film and we will be looking for it. It’s released next Tuesday, so I’m going to try to have the interview up by then.
OF: Alright, thank you so much.
BUG: SUPER HYBRID is available on DVD and BluRay this week. It’s a really fun film and worth a look!
Ambush Bug is Mark L. Miller, original @$$Hole / wordslinger / reviewer / co-editor of AICN Comics for over nine years. Mark is also a regular writer for FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND and will be releasing FAMOUS MONSTERS first ever comic book miniseries LUNA in October (co-written by Martin Fisher with art by Tim Rees) Order Code: AUG111067! Support a Bug by checking out his comics (click on the covers to purchase)!
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