The Big Picture

Vulcanizadora
is a haunting, darkly funny vision of existential horror that is yet another stunner from Joel Potrykus.
The film explores self-destruction and the depths of what follows, bringing plenty of precise deadpan humor and dread.
It builds to a terrifying explosion before exploring its bleak aftermath, leaving us to pick up the pieces that are forever shattered.

Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams. Spike Lee and Denzel Washington. Joel Potrykus and Joshua Burge. All these iconic duos in cinema have collaborated on some outstanding works together, but it’s the final two whose latest macabre movie will melt your face off before burying you under its bleak vision. From the moment they step into frame in the darkly funny vision of existential horror Vulcanizadora, it’s as though we’re witnessing a crusty version of Frodo and Sam from The Lord of the Rings as they head off on a quest. However, as the operatic singing over the top of fiery destruction in the opening shifts to a sick metal riff as this film’s two characters silently walk along, there is no adventure to be found out in the woods. Once again writing and directing in addition to acting, Potrykus spins a yarn that is a little more relaxed in parts, almost playing like his own version of a buddy comedy before we dive head first into death. While there are plenty of laughs to be had along the way, there is nothing but pain at the end of the road. While it’s been a few years since Burge and Potrykus released the similarly riveting experience that is Relaxer, they haven’t lost a step since.

If anything, Vulcanizadora is an expansion on many of the same ideas surrounding self-destruction and isolation of that prior film. It’s also a sequel of sorts to Potrykus’s 2014 film Buzzard, but you needn’t have seen that for this one to grab hold of you. His latest brings a sense of deadpan humor and dread that is so perfectly layered that it leaves a brand new pit in your stomach. It’s a film that resembles the massive amount of black snake fireworks that get lit early on in the woods in a simple yet mesmerizing sequence. As you watch the ash come bursting out as it all burns and expands, it creates a strange sense of awe just before it collapses in on itself. You’re then left to sort through the rubble for what is left when all that provided this small sliver of wonder has now been burnt to a crisp. It makes for a film where the horror doesn’t come from conventional scares. Rather, it all flows from the grim march towards what will be an empty husk of a life after everything has fallen apart. There is no film you’ll ever see like it as it patiently builds to a terrifying explosion and then keeps going from where most would stop, leaving us to pick up the pieces that are forever shattered. However, as we soon see, this nightmarish Humpty Dumpty can never be put back together again.

Vulcanizadora (2024) Release Date June 8, 2024 Director Joel Potrykus Cast Joel Potrykus , Joshua Burge , Sherryl Despres , Bill Vincent , Melissa Blanchard , Solo Potrykus , Scott Ayotte , Dennis Grantz Main Genre Drama Writers Joel Potrykus

What Is ‘Vulcanizadora’ About?

The film primarily takes place in a forest in Michigan as the troubled Martin Jackitansky (Burge) heads out with his friend Derek Skiba (Potrykus) for a camping trip that is far from ordinary. Though shot in beautiful and rich 16 mm by cinematographer Adam J. Minnick, who previously worked on nearly all of Potrykus’ excellent past works as well as the underseen recent film Quantum Cowboys, the initial wide framing that captures the vibrancy of the woods soon gives way to increasingly uncomfortable close-ups where the faces of the two flawed fellows feel etched in phases of sadness and denial. Once we understand what it is that awaits them at the end of this procession, that’s where the horror starts to creep in.

There is plenty of silly humor, but it is simultaneously tied up in a more somber state of mind. Early on, in the film’s first delightfully dry punchline that grows even more darkly funny in retrospect, Derek remarks that he left his keys behind on the bus that took them there. When Martin says that this doesn’t matter, laying into him about it and grilling him on why he cares, it soon becomes clear that both have a vastly different mindset about what they are here to do. While the more extreme moments of the film may capture the most attention on first watch and are remarkably well-executed, Potrykus deserves praise for how precisely he captures the depths of pain that come pouring out of people like the ash out of a firework.

Without going too far down where the filmmaker takes us so that the experience of discovery can be preserved, when the moment comes in Vulcanizadora where a character puts a mask that feels like it was ripped from the world of Saw on himself and his traveling companion, you find yourself transfixed by what is happening despite how much you may want to look away. The scene that then plays out for what is only a few agonizing minutes, though feels much longer, is defined by a sense of all-consuming despair. While both men on this trip were flawed, with revelations about the harm they each inflicted on others coming out in pieces, there is no road to redemption in Potrykus’ eyes. Instead, it is just panic as he looks at his co-star and longtime muse. Both Potrykus and Burge give two of their best performances to date in this moment, just before the air is ripped right out of the scene and the film writ large. The sound of labored, weak breathing, as Potrykus twists the knife further and further while this death rattle echoes in your ears, is as horrifying as anything he has ever done.

‘Vulcanizadora’ Is Potrykus at His Most Haunting

While there could easily be a temptation to say part of this is about the filmmaker reflecting in some way on his relationship to his films, his collaborators, and his family (especially since his own child shows up near the end in some of the most heartbreaking scenes where the distant Florida stands in for death itself) that could easily feel like a narrowing of what he is tapping into. His vision is one of despair, death, and the desolation that comes after, which can consume all of us. That he just lets us sit in that where others would stop and cut to black is the point. It is a film where the greatest fear is not about being punished for what we’ve done, but the possibility that we won’t be, just carrying on in a state of being unable to repent. What if life is just a series of accumulating bad acts and devastating mistakes where, no matter if we try to set it right, we’ll all be doomed to only just make it all infinitely worse?

Though it doesn’t tear down the walls of its setting as much as Relaxer did, it doesn’t feel like this film needs to when everything is already always in a state of collapsing. The final act of the film is like a series of failed confessions where the sadness and nervousness prove suffocating, preventing the right words from coming out if there even were any to begin with. When there is a discussion about how Hell might just be existing in a constant state of being sad and nervous forever, you realize that the journey of Vulcanizadora is about stumbling into exactly that. Without the characters realizing they’re doing it until it is far too late, they’ve set themselves afire in the hope of escaping. Now they are just left to burn until there is nothing remaining but ash, swallowed up by the sands of a life defined by bad choices from which there is no escape. But hey, I’ve heard the water is nice in Florida if you make it down there.

REVIEW Vulcanizadora (2024) Vulcanizadora is another stunning vision from Joel Potrykus that is both well-executed in the explosive moments and just as haunting in the emotional ones.ProsThe film is both darkly funny and existentially horrifying, never once missing a step.Both Potrykus and his frequent collaborator Joshua Burge give two of their best performances to date, drawing us fully in the grim world they’ve created for themselves.Vulcanizadora pushes well behind where most other films would stop, discovering new depths of despair and a vision of Hell all its own.

Vulcanizadora had its World Premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival.