In part 1 of my interview with Johannes Grenzfurthner, we discussed his time in America, especially Pittsburgh, and how the media depicts the future. Now, we will discuss his films.

B & S About Movies: I’ve seen so much of your work from a first-person point of view, as if you were the camera. What is the intention of that?

Johannes Grenzfurthner: That style is quite specific to the three horror films I’ve made: Masking Threshold, Razzennest and Solvent. While they don’t share a connected plot, they form a kind of trilogy—like strange siblings, aesthetically and philosophically linked.

It all started with Masking Threshold. At the time, I was frustrated because I couldn’t secure proper funding in Austria, so I had to work with a limited budget. Some people call it a “COVID movie,” but we actually wrote and shot it before the pandemic. The timing was just uncanny—I ended up editing during lockdown, which gave me the time to obsess over every detail. The result resonated with audiences in 2021, likely because it captured something of the collective mindset during that strange period.

The film’s style and storytelling approach were deeply influenced by my long-standing fascination with H.P. Lovecraft. I first encountered Lovecraft’s work when I was around 13 or 14. Even at that age, I recognized his deep flaws—his racism was glaring, even by the standards of his time. This aspect of his legacy is impossible to ignore, and it’s been rightly scrutinized in recent years. However, what captivated me was his nihilistic worldview: the notion that humanity is utterly insignificant, just a fleeting speck in a vast, uncaring cosmos. Lovecraft’s horror doesn’t come from traditional monsters or gore but from the indescribable—forces and entities so alien and incomprehensible that they shatter the human mind. For me, this was a revelation. At a time when most of the horror I encountered was about tangible threats—vampires, werewolves, serial killers—Lovecraft introduced the idea that the greatest terror lies in the unknowable. This concept, that there are things beyond our capacity to comprehend or control, fundamentally shaped how I think about storytelling and the boundaries of fear.

That said, engaging with Lovecraft today requires a nuanced perspective. His work is both a product of its time and deeply tied to his personal prejudices, which seep into his stories in ways that are uncomfortable and harmful. It’s important to acknowledge and critique this, especially given how pervasive his influence has been in speculative fiction. At the same time, I think there’s value in wrestling with the contradictions of his legacy. His ability to evoke existential dread remains unparalleled, and I’ve tried to capture some of that sensibility in my own work—but always filtered through a critical lens. For me, Lovecraft represents a dual lesson: on the one hand, the dangers of uncritically glorifying flawed creators, and on the other, the enduring power of ideas that force us to confront our insignificance in the grand scheme of things. That tension is something I find creatively inspiring and endlessly challenging.

However, I’ve always been critical of how Lovecraft is often adapted. Many films try to visualize the madness he describes, but I think that misses the point. Lovecraft’s genius is in what’s left unseen, what can’t be comprehended. His use of adjectives and emotional descriptions creates a sense of dread that visual representation often fails to capture. Unfortunately, his creations—like Cthulhu—have been reduced to pop culture symbols. I mean, Cthulhu as a crocheted teddy bear? (laughs) It’s sad because it trivializes what was once so terrifying.

With Masking Threshold, I wanted to capture that Lovecraftian sense of horror without showing the thing that drives the protagonist mad. The story is about a man who descends into obsessive madness, but you never really see what’s causing it. Is it external—something cosmic and incomprehensible—or is it just his own mind collapsing in on itself? That ambiguity was key. The film’s aesthetics—macro shots of his experiments, the claustrophobic single-room setting—reflect his mental state as he creates his own little universe and falls into it.

B&S: It felt like you were falling into a YouTube hole where you’re watching someone’s work, and suddenly, you almost have to take a step back and empathize with them to a certain degree. But after some time, this person has taken it too far.

Johannes: Exactly. That was very intentional. I love asking audiences at Q&As when they stopped sympathizing with the character. Responses vary widely. Some say it’s when he starts killing animals, which is already pretty late in the story. Others mention his neighbor, which is even later. It’s fascinating to see where people draw the line.

This moral ambiguity is something I explore in all my films. None of my protagonists are “good” people—they’re flawed, sometimes irredeemably so. I find clear-cut heroes incredibly dull. There’s this book called Save the Cat that’s been a bible for screenwriters since the ’90s. It’s all about formula: your protagonist has to do something likable early on, like saving a cat, to make the audience root for them. But that kind of formulaic storytelling doesn’t interest me.

I prefer characters who challenge the audience. It’s like a puzzle—figuring out whether you trust this person, what makes them tick, and how far you’re willing to follow them. I want viewers to question their own complicity. At what point do you stop justifying the protagonist’s actions? You get completely different answers. You get people who say like, well, I mean, he starts becoming nasty when he starts killing animals. And that’s late in the game when he starts killing animals. One guy said, “Well, I mean, he shouldn’t have killed the neighbor.” Oh, my. Yep. That’s late! (laughs)

B&S: It’s like you almost put the person. I know you’re listening to someone, but you almost put the person on a complicit journey with this person. How much will you take from them? Many movies today, as you know, are like, “Here’s the good guy, here’s the bad guy. This is what it is.”

I’ve enjoyed that in all of your films, where almost none of the heroes or the main characters are good people.

Johannes: That’s absolutely true, and it’s very intentional. I find clear-cut heroes and villains incredibly dull. To me, storytelling isn’t about spoon-feeding the audience who to root for or against. It’s about creating morally complex characters that challenge viewers to confront their own boundaries. How far will they follow someone? At what point do they pull back and say, “This is too much?”

I like to think of the audience as being on a journey with the character—not as a passive observer, but as an active participant. They might start out feeling sympathy or pity, but as the story unfolds, that relationship shifts. There’s a point where the character crosses a line, and it’s fascinating to see where different people draw that line. This approach also subverts the formulaic storytelling that dominates so much of cinema today. Save the Cat essentially lays out a formula for writing “perfect” scripts. One of its principles is that your protagonist should do something nice early on, like saving a cat, to make them likable. That’s fine if you’re writing a blockbuster, but I think it reduces characters to caricatures.

I’m more interested in ambiguity. In my films, the audience has to do some detective work. Who is this person? Can I trust them? Should I even want to trust them? It’s not about good or bad—it’s about complexity. And I think that makes for a more engaging, thought-provoking experience.

B&S: It rewards multiple watches, too. People today want things so spelled out within this film structure that they won’t go back and watch it again to see what they missed unless you’re obsessive about film, like I am, like you’re going to buy it and, you know, watch the commentary track and dive into it and live it.

Johannes: It’s interesting to see how platforms like Letterboxd provide such direct and immediate feedback. I really enjoy using it—not because I rely on it for critiques, but because it gives you an unfiltered glimpse into people’s reactions. For example, with Solvent, the response on Letterboxd has been great. You can see it right after a film festival screening—within an hour or two, people start liking, rating, and reviewing the film. It’s a kind of instant feedback that wasn’t possible before.

Making films is so different from theater. In theater, you feel the audience’s reaction in real time—it’s immediate. But with a film, you create this product, put it out there, and wait, often with no idea how it’s landing. Platforms like Letterboxd offer a small window into viewers’ minds, which is fascinating. Take Masking Threshold as an example. It’s a very polarizing film—you see a lot of half-star and five-star reviews, sometimes right next to each other. That doesn’t surprise me. What I find particularly interesting, though, are the people who give it a low rating—like half a star or two stars—yet write a positive review. In those reviews, it’s often clear that they hated the main character. Because they hate the character so much, they seem to feel compelled to give the film a bad rating, even though they were deeply engaged with the story. And to me, that’s a success. The character is meant to be an asshole—I wrote him that way intentionally. So when people react strongly, even negatively, it means I’ve done my job. It’s funny, though, how some viewers can’t separate their feelings about the character from their evaluation of the film.

B&S: It’s like saying, “I hated the main character, so it’s a terrible movie.” (laughs) I hated Vader, so I hated Star Wars.

Johannes: Exactly, exactly. I had the same feeling that those people would now hate Taxi Driver.

In the next part of this interview, we’ll discuss the democratization of film criticism and more of Johannes’ work.