Solvent (film)

Solvent is an English-language Austrian supernatural mystery comedy drama horror film directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner and produced by art group monochrom.

In an interview with VOD Club, Grenzfurthner explains that while the films in the trilogy don't share a narrative thread, they are linked by their examination of philosophical themes: In Masking Threshold, it revolves around the ether, the vibrations, the ephemeral horror.

The film premiered at Slash Filmfestival in Vienna in September 2024: Johannes Grenzfurthner's reliably radical(ly humorous) fathoming of the Austrian psyche in stream-of-consciousness style is a witty and sometimes hilariously low-brow POV-horror grotesque.

[14] Bradley Gibson of Film Threat (8.5/10) says Solvent "takes us to the darkness of humanity's most wicked impulses flowing just beneath us, poisoning the water table.

"[15] Critic Anton Patel remarks that "the film deals in serious issues – the most serious – about human nature and our capacity for both evil and good (mixed, as in a solvent).

That tonal dissonance between comedy and horror only adds to the discomfort created in the viewer, who is confronted with the awfulness, whether merely petty or outright genocidal, coursing invisibly, and often absurdly, through all our veins.