Solvent

A striking mix of psychological horror and raw gore that tackles Austria's dark past head-on. The story centers on Holbrook, an American retrieval expert obsessed with finding hidden Nazi documents in a crumbling farmhouse. As his mind begins to unravel, he encounters an ancient evil tied to Austria's lingering wartime guilt.

Adding a personal edge, the film was shot entirely on director Johannes Grenzfurthner's actual grandfather's abandoned farm. This hauntingly real setting, along with family photos portraying the sinister Wolfgang Zinggl and his grandson, brings a disturbing authenticity to the already eerie story.

"No mice, dicks, or feelings were hurt in the making of this film" (a quote from the film's credits)

... I am not sure that the last one is true.

Watched as part of SoHOME Horror Fest 2024

I was very wary going into this film as I was worried that it would be too heavy a topic for a stormy Friday night home alone... but I found myself quickly becoming engaged with the twisting plot and its strange happenings. The whole film left me feeling very unsettled though and even the euro-beat music over the credits couldn't cheer me.

This film will work its way inside you like an endoscopic camera.

Dropping just days before Austria's election, Solvent, directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner, couldn't feel more relevant. The country is dealing with the alarming rise of the far-right FPÖ in the lead-up to the general election on September 29. Oskar Deutsch, President of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (IKG) Wien, has raised the alarm about the party's connections to nationalist Burschenschaften (fraternities) with ties to Nazi ideology. His warning that the FPÖ's growing success feels "threatening to many" casts a dark shadow over the film's eerie dive into history and guilt.

Solvent centers on Gunner S. Holbrook, an American expat played by Jon Gries, who gets caught up in a twisted hunt for Nazi documents in an old Austrian farmhouse. As Holbrook spirals deeper into his obsession with uncovering hidden evils, the farmhouse (chosen by Grenzfurthner for personal reasons) becomes a metaphor for Austria's messy, shattered past. Holbrook's descent into madness is a reflection of a society still struggling to deal with its own historical Gepäck (baggage).

Grenzfurthner amps up the horror with grotesque body transformations and intense psychological tension, making for a film that's as terrifying as it is symbolic. Holbrook's twisted metamorphosis symbolizes how unaddressed guilt and silence can warp both individuals and societies. Pieter de Graaf's haunting score adds to the creepy atmosphere, while the practical effects hit hard with a gritty, visceral feel.

With its themes of guilt, memory, and authority, Solvent is hitting home at a time when Austria is dealing with a resurgence of political extremism and disturbing new waves of anti-Semitism. It's a bold and artistic response to the fears hanging over Austria right now, reminding us all of the dangers that come with ignoring history.

"Solvent" is not just another found-footage horror film. It is a bodily, architectural, and psychological collapse seen through the invasive eye of a borescope. This inspection camera becomes the film's central aesthetic tool, crawling through moldy walls, rusted pipes, and organic cavities. The effect is grotesquely intimate: closer to "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" than to anything in conventional found footage.

Where "Sinister" blends analog textures into digital unease, "Solvent" assembles a chaotic visual collage of historical footage and documentary-style POV, always returning to the borescope's unnerving perspective. This is no gimmick. It is the film's formal and narrative spine, reshaping how we perceive both space and character. The soundscape evokes the sonic dread of "Berberian Sound Studio," while Pieter de Graaf's score steadily escalates the tension toward a terrifying conclusion.

The film's relentless focus on excrement as a symbol of historical denial is both grotesque and brilliant. Urine becomes an agent of malevolence, black fluids ooze like unrepentant guilt, and the farmstead itself festers as a monument to suppressed horrors. Grenzfurthner's imagery ties Austria's cultural PTSD to the grotesque, confronting viewers with the visceral ugliness of unprocessed guilt.

Anchored by Gries' and Cwen's performances, Solvent is a haunting meditation on complicity and denial. Its daring fusion of body horror and political critique makes it an unflinching excavation of a nation's soiled conscience.