“All I’ve ever dreamed about is living on a couch, playing video games with no one bugging me. Relaxer is the nightmare version of my fantasy,” so says Joel Potrykus when it comes to his latest unsettling, yet riveting film. A fitting companion with his brilliant Buzzard, the Y2K-set feature stars Joshua Burge as he undertakes a challenge with grave consequences. Oscilloscope Pictures has now released the first trailer, which grabs a quote from our SXSW review.
John Fink said in our review, “While many indie filmmakers like Andrew Bujalski started making films in apartments with their friends and scaled up to larger projects, Michigan-based madman Joel Potrykus has gleefully and unapologetically scaled down as his career has progressed. His fourth outing, Relaxer, barely even takes place in an apartment, but rather in the corner of a living room where Abbie (Joshua Burge) is stuck on a couch for nearly six months. While staying there, his cruel (or tough love) brother Cam, (David Dastmalchian), gives him a series of challenges. For the first one, he needs to drink a gallon of curdled milk out of nine baby bottles. Under the watchful eye of a Sony handicam, he’s not permitted to leave the couch under any circumstances until he’s finished. It’s these type of scenarios that are all over Relaxer, an unsettling and unapologetic comedy of untold horrors. A borderline masterpiece of “what the fuck” insanity, films that are simultaneously this absurd and this watchable are a feat.”
Also starring David Dastmalchian, Andre Hyland, Amari Cheatom, and Adina Howard, see the trailer below.
Doom and gloom are on the way. The Y2K apocalypse can’t be stopped. Abbie’s older brother issues him the ultimate challenge before it goes down: beat the infamous level 256 in Pac-Man and no getting up from the couch until he does so. Abbie’s survival story begins here; inside a rotting living room with no food or water, and a revolving door of numb-nut friends and acquaintances. It’s THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL by way of SLACKER.
Relaxer opens on March 22.