“Blood Car,” a wacky horror comedy with political overtones, screens tonight at the Heirloom Arts Theater at 155 Main St. at 7:30 p.m.

Click on what’s supposed to be a photo on the left to see a bigger shot.

Here’s a reprint of an interview I did back in November, when “Blood Car” played at Bethel Cinema.

Here’s the plot — in the “near future,” gas costs $40 a gallon. An elementary school teacher finds a cheap alternative — HUMAN BLOOD! And there you have “Blood Car,” one of the weirder features screening at this year’s Connecticut Film Festival.

Adam Pinney, the independent film’s co-writer, producer, editor and director of photography, answered questions about the horror/comedy.

QUESTION: “Blood Car” sounds like a horror film with a message, a la George Romero’s zombie flicks (“Dawn of the Dead”). How did the idea for the movie come about?

ANSWER: “Myself, Alex Orr, and Hugh Braselton of Fake Wood Wallpaper were driving around one day, complaining about never having made a feature film and decided right there and then to do it. “We wanted it to touch on something social and topical, but also wanted it to make a little money and since we had no budget, horror is the way to go to recoup costs on a movie. “High gas prices seemed like something that would be topical for the next few years, so a car that runs on human blood seemed to push the right buttons for us.”

Q: How would you describe the film to people who haven’t seen it? What other horror movies would you compare it to?

A: “The films it has been compared to are a cross of ‘Little Shop of Horrors,’ ‘Bucket of Blood,’ ‘Dead Alive’ (early Peter Jackson in general) mixed with some political satire a la ‘Strangelove.'”

Q: Describe the film’s tone. Wall-to-wall gore or is there a heaping of comedy in there?

A: “The film sells itself as a horror film but it really is more of a comedy/satire with a horror theme. There is gore and horrible, horrible things that happen, but we make sure you laugh at them rather than be scared or grossed out.”

Q: What filmmakers influenced you? What horror films influenced you, if any?

A: “Roger Corman was an influence mainly for the low-budget, high concept idea. For actual scenes and filming, we ripped from everything from ‘The Shining,’ ‘Natural Born Killers,’ ‘The Godfather,’ ‘Goodfellas,’ ‘Last Tango in Paris’ and on and on.”

Q: There’s been much talk about the horror genre being dead, thanks to “torture porn” failures such as ‘Hostel 2’ and ‘Captivity?’ Is there any truth to the genre being dead?

A: “‘Torture porn’ doesn’t engage an audience at all and basically (stinks).It’s the same movie over and over. ‘Hostel,’ ‘Captivity,’ ‘Saw,’ etc. etc. Its purpose is to be gross and violent. The great horror films don’t just go for that, they have something else. Great horror films like ‘The Shining,’ ‘Audition,’ ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre,’ are not just gore fests. They have stuff like that but they also have a great, frightening story that pulls you in. These new horror films are trash.”

Q: How are you spreading the word about ‘Blood Car?’

A: “We are spreading the word about ‘Blood Car’ mainly on the Internet now, to help get the DVD sold or rented. MySpace has been pretty integral in getting the word out for us. Before the DVD release, we just entered the film in as many festivals as possible. Luckily, we got into a large number of them and even won a handful of awards, which gets you a lot more recognition in the press. The film has been reviewed on numerous horror Web sites, in Variety and newspapers at the various festivals.