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.

Artist, filmmaker, writer, actor, curator, theatre director, performer, lecturer, founder, conceiver, and artistic director of monochrom, an international art and theory group and film production company, Johannes Grenzfurthner has accomplished so much in his time in this reality. He started as a zine publisher, with monochrom emerging as a zine that used art, technology, and subversion to react to the rising conservatism in cyber-cultures, while also exploring the Austrian punk and antifa movements.

He also developed what he calls “context hacking,” which “…transfers the hackers’ objectives and methods to the network of social relationships in which artistic production occurs, and upon which it is dependent. In a metaphoric sense, these relationships also have a source code. Programs run in them, and our interaction with them is structured by a user interface. When we understand how a space, niche, scene, subculture, or media/political practice functions, we can change it and ‘recode’ it, deconstructing its power relationships and emancipating ourselves from its compulsions and packaging guidelines.”

I discovered his work when I saw his film Masking Threshold at a festival. It was disturbing, but in the best possible way, waking up parts of my mind. I’m beyond excited that we had the chance to have a rambling, insightful conversation, which I’ve edited into the multipart article you’ll find below.

B&S About Movies: I’ve picked something up from watching your films, especially your new film, Solvent. That’s the idea that we won’t always get the future we want or were promised. Movies have led us to believe that we are getting this post-apocalyptic or Orwellian future and that what we have is what we have. You’ve spent a lot of time in the U.S. lately. Did you feel that?

Johannes Grenzfurthner: It’s always been this way, but it feels more obvious now—the growing sense of people being controlled by powerful forces. The shift after recent elections really highlights it. 

I visit the U.S. regularly, two or three times a year, and this trip has personal roots as well. My first horror film, Masking Threshold, is set in a small town in Florida, a place I’ve been visiting since my parents bought a condo there in the early ’90s. It’s near Orlando—cheap, warm, with minimal hurricane risk. I’ve spent a lot of time there, and it’s a town called Apopka, which serves as a bedroom community for Orlando workers. That’s the base for my protagonist in Masking Threshold. All the products and settings used in the film come from what I learned over decades of visiting. My first trip to the U.S. was actually around the time RoboCop came out, which is a film I think brilliantly satirizes the ’80s and its political climate. It imagines what would happen if you turned the issues of that time up to 1000%, and, looking around now, it’s clear we’re living in that RoboCop world.

B&S: Other than in RoboCop 3, where he leaves the force and fights for the common man.

Johannes: I don’t think that would ever happen. I think RoboCop would stay within the police and within this structure. (laughs)

B&S: The film’s end is shot right beside where I live. On the commentary track, Nancy Allen says it’s the shittiest town she’s ever been to.

Johannes: I actually like Pittsburgh! It’s a gritty city, but it’s one of the few in the Rust Belt that managed to transition from an industrial economy—steel and coal—to a knowledge-based economy. It’s not doing badly compared to other Rust Belt cities, and the shift to universities, tech companies, and Google’s campus helped a lot. I lived there for about half a year during the coldest, darkest part of the year. I stayed near the Boulevard of the Allies, and it was so cold and bleak. I used a Panera Bread place as my office. Comfortably dystopian! The person I was living with didn’t realize how bad the cold could get. We had this basement bathroom, and she didn’t know the toilet water could freeze. Well, she ended up being stuck with it frozen for three months! (laughs)

B&S: A Pittsburgh potty.

Johannes: I really like Pennsylvania. I was driving through Pennsylvania after a film festival and made my way through Amish country near Lancaster. We ate Thanksgiving dinner at a place that was very German. I was very pleasantly surprised to learn that not only are the Amish very German, but they also have long German names. I’m obsessed with the Amish! I feel like there are not enough Amish horror movies out there. I think a Rumspringa horror film would be interesting.

B&S: There’s like an American term, like once someone’s off the farm, how do you get them back on?

Johannes: They’re scared out of their minds, I think. It’s fascinating reverse psychology. The Amish let their children experience a year of freedom, a kind of “Rumspringa,” where they can do whatever they want—drink, party, try drugs like snorting Coke—and live without rules. But after that taste of the outside world, they often can’t deal with it. The sudden exposure to all that excess and freedom is overwhelming for many. In the U.S., you still feel the weight of that Puritan culture everywhere, especially when it comes to the judgment of vice and the role of morality in everyday life. It’s an ingrained aspect of American society.

Growing up in Austria, I had a different experience. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of, but I had my first alcohol poisoning when I was 14. It wasn’t unusual to get exposed to vices early in life, whether it’s alcohol or tobacco. You grow accustomed to these things at a younger age. It’s part of the culture, especially when it’s treated casually, and it’s viewed as part of growing up. I went through that phase too, but eventually, I moved past it, got it out of my system, and didn’t feel the need to keep pushing those boundaries.

The Amish, though, they get no preparation for that kind of transition. When they go out during their Rumspringa year, they are thrust into this intense and unregulated freedom with no prior experience to help them navigate it. It’s a sudden and overwhelming immersion, and for many, it’s just too much.

Adding to that, the Amish education system is extremely limited. They only go to elementary school, and once they hit a certain age, their education stops because they are taught not to believe in things like evolution, or modern science, which they consider at odds with their faith. This lack of education limits their opportunities if they choose to leave the community. If you leave the Amish, your prospects are somewhat grim—you can work in a gas station or perhaps a simple manual labor job, but there’s not much else beyond that unless you go back and inherit the family farm. It’s a stark choice, really, between staying within the community and working the land or stepping outside and finding yourself without the skills or qualifications to thrive in the modern world.

That said, they are extraordinary craftspeople. They excel at traditional trades, like raising roofs and constructing barns with precision and care. Despite the limits on technology in their everyday lives, they do use cell phones, but only for work and only under specific conditions. They might use them in the barn or the stable, but not in their homes. It’s a funny juxtaposition: they are isolated from the modern world in so many ways, but they also need these tools to make a living and maintain their farms.

Some Amish communities even set up little phone booths outside their homes, where young people can sit and make calls to the outside world. It’s almost as though they’re physically separate from the modern world, but in small ways, they’re allowed these tiny points of contact.

And then there’s this strange detail: Amish kids can use roller skates or inline skates to go to school. But here’s the catch—they can only use them for transportation, not for fun. It’s bizarre, isn’t it? They’re allowed the tool, but the purpose is strictly functional, with no room for recreation. It’s a weirdly strict line they walk between the permissible and the forbidden, one that’s hard to fully understand unless you experience it.

And the issue of buttons… it’s something that’s always fascinated me. The Amish avoid buttons because they associate them with military uniforms. During the time when the Amish community was formed, they were fleeing the German military draft, and buttons were seen as a symbol of the military and the state’s control. Instead of buttons, they use pins to fasten their clothes. It’s a small, subtle rebellion against the imposition of the state, a way to maintain their cultural identity in the face of outside forces that they see as a threat to their way of life.

B&S: You mention the U.S. being puritanical. Now we have younger Film Twitter complaining about sex scenes in movies.

Johnnes: I’ve been teaching at a university for many, many years, until I just got to the point where I said, “I’m done with that shit. I don’t want to do it anymore.” And looking back, I always felt like it should have been the other way around. I felt like I was the one constantly shocking my students with what I was teaching, but shouldn’t it be the students who come up with crazy ideas to shock me? Isn’t that how it should work? The role of the teacher is supposed to be one of guidance, but there’s something unsettling when the younger generation seems to be less willing to push boundaries, when they seem more concerned about protecting their comfort zones. It’s almost as if they’re not challenging societal norms but instead reinforcing them.

And this “new normcore,” as I like to call it, it’s a strange phenomenon we’re witnessing today. There’s this term in Germany and Austria—Biedermeier—and I’m not sure if it’s as commonly known outside of these countries, but it really helps explain what I’m seeing in today’s younger generation. Biedermeier refers to a period that followed the 1848 revolutions, which failed miserably across Europe, particularly in Austria and Germany. These revolutions were largely driven by the bourgeoisie, the rising middle class, who were fed up with the aristocracy and the old imperial system. The revolutions were anti-clerical and anti-imperial to varying degrees, and they were hoping for more civil rights, social reform, and political change.

But, as we know, the revolutions failed. In Austria and Germany, many were executed, and the reforms they sought never materialized. The revolutions didn’t have the same success as the French Revolution, for example, where there was a much clearer dismantling of the old order. In the case of Austria and Germany, the rebellion fizzled, and nothing truly changed. The political and social structures remained in place, and people were crushed for having participated in these movements.

So, after these revolutions failed, there came a period of stagnation, of quiet retreat into the private sphere. For about 15 to 20 years, those who had been part of the revolutions didn’t speak out publicly anymore. Instead of meeting in public spaces to continue their political or philosophical debates, they retreated into their homes. It was as if the state was always lurking, ready to punish them for any sign of dissent, so they began meeting in secret. All the ideas, the discussions, the controversial materials that could have sparked real change were now happening behind closed doors—among friends and intellectuals in their living rooms. This period of silence and hiding, where the public space was stifled and everything became private, was called Biedermeier.

Now, a friend of mine, a historian who’s doing a lot of research on popular culture, has pointed out something interesting. He argues that we are experiencing something similar right now. He believes that we’re living through our own 21st-century version of Biedermeier. The COVID-19 pandemic has altered our social landscape in such profound ways that, just like in the past, we’ve retreated into our homes. Instead of gathering in bars or going to parties, young people today are meeting in private, either in their own homes or virtually. The very concept of social interaction has become fundamentally different. It’s not about the public space or the collective experience anymore; it’s about staying at home, often in isolation, with limited socialization.

Take, for example, the situation with kids today. A friend of mine’s child, who is only nine years old, hardly ever sees his friends in person. But here’s the strange part—he’s constantly connected to them, just not in the traditional way. The moment he gets home from school, he turns on Zoom, and that’s how he stays in touch with his friends. They might not even talk to each other, but they’re still “together,” in a way. They keep the Zoom call going until it’s time to go to bed, and then they say goodnight before closing the connection. It’s like they’re together, but not truly hanging out. It’s as though they’re physically separate but emotionally tethered through this invisible connection, like an umbilical cord that keeps them grounded in each other’s lives.

This digital connection is very different from how we used to think about friendships or relationships. It’s not about shared experiences or hanging out in the traditional sense. It’s almost like a strange social periphery—where you’re in touch, but you’re also distanced in a way that’s hard to explain. It’s not the same as meeting in person, where you can read body language, have spontaneous interactions, and physically share space. Instead, these interactions are more controlled, more structured. They’re mediated by technology, and while they keep people connected, they also create a barrier that can feel isolating in its own right.

In some ways, it’s a bit disturbing. It’s like we’re reverting to a more privatized way of being, where social interactions are happening behind closed doors, shielded from the broader, messier world. And just like the Biedermeier period after the failed revolutions, it feels like the interesting, controversial, or boundary-pushing stuff isn’t happening out in the open anymore. It’s happening in private spaces—whether that’s in a Zoom call or behind closed doors at home—where there’s less risk of confrontation or disruption from the outside world.

It’s all very strange, this shift from public spaces to private spheres, and it makes me wonder if we’re entering a kind of cultural cocoon. Just as in the past, when people were hiding their revolutionary ideas from the state, today it feels like we’re hiding our true selves, our desires, and our pushback against societal norms from the outside world, and confining it to the safety of private, digital spaces. We’re connected, but we’re also more isolated than ever before.

B&S: An umbilical cord. But I worry they won’t have a shared culture like our generation. We’ve just met, but we’ve already had a few cultural touchstones that allowed us to get to know one another.

Johannes: I’ll be 50 in 2025, so we’re from the same generation, and I can really relate. We’ve both witnessed the growth of the internet, from fax machines and bulletin board systems (BBS) to the digital world we live in now. I remember using a 1,200 baud modem when I first went online—slow, screeching connections, but it felt exciting to be part of something new.

monochrom, my art group and film production company, started on one of those early BBSs. We used text-based forums to connect with like-minded people and collaborate on projects. Back then, the net was a niche, raw space for building communities without the social media platforms we have now. It was about exchanging ideas, making real connections, and forming friendships across the globe. Looking back, it’s fascinating how the shift from analog to digital has transformed how we interact. We went from in-person communities to digital ones, yet the core desire for connection has stayed the same. Even with all the changes, the excitement of those early days remains—a time when we were building the internet brick by brick.

B&S: You were tying up your parents’ phone line.

Johannes: Yeah, I was definitely tying up the phone line, but that’s actually how I met Franky Ablinger, with whom I later founded monochrom. Back then, I was looking for others who shared my interest in creating a punk rock fanzine. Most of the other fanzines I found were all about people getting drunk or partying, which, honestly, was boring to me. I wasn’t into that scene. I was a bit of a nerd, really—more into RoboCop, tinkering with electronics, soldering things together, and reading science fiction. I was more of a cyberpunk kind of guy.

Franky and I were from different worlds—he was 23, I was 17—but we clicked instantly. We started collaborating, and two years later, we published our first fanzine together. That’s when monochrom was born. It was a slow process at first, but we were passionate. We didn’t just want to do a fanzine; we wanted to create something unique, something different from what everyone else was doing.

You know, it was so different back then. When you took an analog photo, you’d have to go to the supermarket, drop off the film, and then wait a week for the prints to come back. It was frustratingly slow for someone like me, who was eager to see results right away. So I bought a Polaroid camera. Sure, it was past its prime by then, but the beauty of it was that I could take a picture and see the result instantly. That instant gratification was something I craved.

And then, I was the first in my friend circle to get a laser printer. People would line up to come to my house just to print things out, and my mom, she was so sweet about it. She’d open the door and ask, “Are you coming here to print something?” (laughs) It became this little hub where people could get things done. It was an exciting time. It felt like everything was moving so fast, and we were part of something new, something emerging.

B&S: When you think of zines then — and movies — they again promised a future that we may not have received.

Johannes: Yeah, when I think of zines and movies from that era, it’s true—they promised a future we may not have gotten. As an example: If you look at the current Star Wars franchise, it’s kind of sad. Everything is so reduced, and they’re all forced to adapt or copy this strange retro aesthetic from the mid-70s. It’s like that’s the standard now, that’s how the universe is supposed to be presented. Even though they have things like hyperspace drives and advanced technology, it’s all framed in this pixelated, low-resolution style, like they’re stuck in a 320×200 display. It’s as if they’ve taken this vision of the future, but instead of pushing boundaries or imagining something new, they’re just regurgitating what came before, hoping that nostalgia will carry it. It’s a weird, backward-looking future. In many ways, it’s almost as if the promise of what we could achieve, in terms of technological or artistic progress, just hasn’t materialized.

B & S: If Jodorowsky’s Dune had been made, would we have a different lexicon for what science fiction is? It’s always weird to me that Star Wars is the tent pole it all became.

Johannes: Well, there could definitely be worse tentpoles, I’ll give Star Wars that. The first two, at least, were really good. They have a kind of grittiness that was unique for its time—almost like a space Western. They’re rough around the edges, not all shiny and polished like the typical futuristic visions of the past. In that sense, they kind of broke the mold. That grittiness informed other films too, like Alien and Blade Runner. These films depict a future that’s not all utopian and sleek but rather run-down, where the idealism of earlier sci-fi is replaced with something more realistic and less optimistic. The sci-fi of the 50s and 60s, by contrast, was all about sleek, shiny futures—this belief that we were heading towards some sort of utopia. Even films like Logan’s Run, with their dark undertones, still showed a future where everything was glossy and perfect. But Star Wars marked a shift. It’s like the future wasn’t necessarily bright or utopian anymore; it was gritty, flawed, and full of imperfections.

The problem is when retro aesthetics, like those from Star Wars, define the boundaries of what we can imagine for the future. We’re stuck in a nostalgia loop, unable to project truly original visions. Mainstream sci-fi has become a stale copy of a copy of a feeling, rather than a space for innovation.

In the next chapter, we’ll go deeper into Johannes’ films while still making the time to have this interview go anywhere and everywhere.