Solvent is an English-language Austrian horror film directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner and produced by art group monochrom. It stars Jon Gries, Aleksandra Cwen, Johannes Grenzfurthner, and Roland Gratzer.
American contractor Gunner S. Holbrook (Jon Gries), a former soldier and founder of a private recovery firm, is hired by Polish historian Dr. Krystyna Szczepanska (Aleksandra Cwen) to investigate an abandoned farmhouse in Egelsau, Austria. The property once belonged to Wolfgang Zinggl (Otto Zucker, archival footage), a nonagenarian farmer and former SS officer who vanished in 2014 after becoming increasingly erraticâÂÂmost notably obsessively bottling his own urine. During the war, Zinggl had been stationed at the Cheà Âmno extermination camp, where the Nazis experimented with methods of mass murder.
Holbrook is joined by Szczepanska, local fixer Richie Fischvogt (Ronald von den Sternen), technician Kyle Edward Boll (Peter Plos/voice: Galen Howard), research assistant Cornelia Dunzinger (Jasmin Hagendorfer), and ZingglâÂÂs grandson Ernst Bartholdi (Johannes Grenzfurthner), the owner of a PR company. Bartholdi does not speak kindly of his grandfather and shares some of his horrible beliefs. Zinggl had also been part of a network of ultra-right-wingers but became frustrated with their lack of will to fight and shifted his energy toward other pursuits, e.g., alternative medicine. Holbrook documents all this with a helmet camera, editing the footage into a video diary that blends his material with archival records.
While exploring the decaying farm, the group meets Fredi Weinhappl (Roland Gratzer), a conspiracy-minded neighbor who had long been close to Zinggl and observed his eccentric routines. Because of this familiarity, Weinhappl knows of a wine cellar near the property and leads the team there. Inside, they discover a tunnel and a metal pipe exhaling a faint draft. When Szczepanska touches the pipe, she suffers a psychotic episode and accidentally causes DunzingerâÂÂs death. The mission collapses.
Wracked with guilt, Holbrook supports the suicidal Szczepanska, whoâÂÂonce stable enoughâÂÂis brought to her home in Warsaw. There, he cares for her while facing lawsuits over DunzingerâÂÂs death. Formerly a couple, they rekindle a fragile bond, but her instability and his deepening obsession drive them apart. Determined to uncover the truth, Holbrook eventually returns to Austria alone, camping in the wet forests near Egelsau in a car borrowed from Fischvogt.
Attempting to re-enter the cellar, Holbrook is caught by Weinhappl, who alerts Bartholdi. Enraged, Bartholdi bans him from the property, but Holbrook disobeys and secretly investigates the pipe with a borescope. To his horror, he discovers a living human eye in the darkness and underground caverns filled with a yellow, viscous liquid. After conducting testsâÂÂand already showing signs of erratic behaviorâÂÂhe begins drinking the substance despite SzczepanskaâÂÂs pleas to stop. The fluid forgesâÂÂor amplifiesâÂÂa psychic link between him and Zinggl.
Holbrook becomes so consumed with the pipe that he ignores returning FischvogtâÂÂs car, even mocking his generosity. This leads to Fischvogt physically attacking him and reclaiming his car keys. The attack leaves Holbrook knocked out on the floor of the cellar and triggers World War II hallucinations. When he awakens and leaves, he is cornered by Weinhappl, Bartholdi, and BartholdiâÂÂs frustrated girlfriend (Bibiane Zimba). For the first time, Zinggl speaks through Holbrook in a German accent, accusing Bartholdi of having sold his Nazi relics to far-right collectors in Uruguay to finance his PR business. Zinggl blackmails Bartholdi into leaving them undisturbed. Weinhappl, somewhat impressed by this bold move, offers Holbrook his support.
Through his recordings, Holbrook observes his hallucinations and dissociative episodesâÂÂe.g., tattooing himself while semi-conscious. He also grows obsessed with the âÂÂcleansingâ properties of urine. Weinhappl, increasingly alarmed by HolbrookâÂÂs behavior, remains his only local ally, supplying him with materialsâÂÂand cookies from his wife.
Holbrook discovers documentsâÂÂproof that Bartholdi really sold the Nazi relics to Uruguayan NazisâÂÂand becomes even more convinced to stay and continue searching. He rambles about his former military life during Operation Desert Storm and the atrocities he witnessed and participated in as a mercenary in Bosnia.
A frustrated Bartholdi confronts Holbrook in the wine cellar after uncovering his past as a child-killing mercenary. He wants all the video footage to salvage the PR stunt he had planned to raise his reputation and win awards but which collapsed after DunzingerâÂÂs death. He also intends to delete incriminating material against him. Holbrook, channeling ZingglâÂÂs voice, mocks him and drives him away. He continues studying the pipe and learns that the pipe system also functions as a representation and extension of Zinggl. For example, Zinggl kills a mouse by emitting toxic gases from the pipe.
The longer Holbrook studies the pipe and maps its underground system, the more cynical and aggressive he becomes. But he also shows physical changes: he begins urinating black fluid and proudly shows off the swastika tattoo he has inked onto his forearm.
During a phone call with Szczepanska, Bartholdi breaks into her apartment in Warsaw, threatening and assaulting her to force HolbrookâÂÂs complicity. A distressed Szczepanska tells Holbrook she couldnâÂÂt endure the psychic connection to Zinggl, which drove her madâÂÂbut insists that he can withstand it. She urges him not to worry about her and to continue.
Alone, HolbrookâÂÂs conversations with Zinggl grow violent and self-destructive. Zinggl claims they are now oneâÂÂâÂÂpart of the water.â Holbrook rejects this. Zinggl tells him to examine the pipe with the borescope, and Holbrook experiences the device emerging from his own penisâÂÂan obscene sign of their union. In an act of defiance, he tries to seal the pipe with duct tape, but Zinggl is too powerful. He cuts the tattoo from his arm with a knife, incapacitating his right hand but symbolically reclaiming his agency. Accepting that he will not leave the cellar alive, Holbrook resolves to âÂÂmake it countâ and extract as much information as possible.
He records coordinates and names linked to undiscovered Cheà Âmno mass graves in his black notebook and coerces Zinggl into revealing details about present-day neo-Nazi networks. He leaks the information to international authorities and to the extremists themselves, with an invitation to âÂÂcheck out the cool pipe.â One of the Nazi leaders, Haneke (Sky Elobar), immediately calls and threatens to kill him. Holbrook then releases a public statement containing videos exposing BartholdiâÂÂs secrets. As he finishes, his body collapses and black fluid seeps from his penis and abdomen.
Szczepanska, who has escaped Warsaw after BartholdiâÂÂs attack, returns to find Holbrook weak and fading. In his final moment, he hands her the black notebook before sinking into the earth.
The credits reveal BartholdiâÂÂs suicide in his grandfatherâÂÂs attic, followed by three neo-Nazis (Jello Biafra, Jörg Buttgereit, Chris Gore) arriving at the wine cellarâÂÂwhere a human eye emerges from the earth and looks up.
Horror and sound play an essential role in the film. Grenzfurthner says that Solvent forms a trilogy with Masking Threshold and Razzennest. 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:
Grenzfurthner used the old farm of his maternal grandfather, Otto Zucker, as the location for the film and also incorporated old photographs of Zucker to depict the Nazi antagonist Wolfgang Zinggl. Grenzfurthner spoke at length about his desire to incorporate the reality of his family into this fictional exploration of Austria's Nazi past. Zebrabutter calls this a cinematic "palimpsest." In a Blu-ray featurette, Grenzfurthner has described Solvent as an antifascist horror film concerned with Austrian memory culture, family silence, and the persistence of fascist ideology. He has also linked the filmâÂÂs imagery of mold, seepage, and bodily contamination to buried historical violence and repression.
Grenzfurthner has shared in Q&A sessions and interviews that much of what the Nazi character Zinggl says are verbatim quotationsâÂÂfrom conversations overheard on the street, posts on online forums, or remarks heard in real life. Especially for the Nazi character, he explains, it was necessary to root the monstrosity in realism. For example, a controversial remark about Zionism and the Nazisâ regret of âÂÂnot having six more monthsâ is actually quoted from a neo-Nazi recruiter on the streets of Vienna during an anti-vaxxer demonstration.
The film combines a point-of-view style with experimental techniques, incorporating elements of both mystery and splatter films.
Solvent was shot in and around Unterzögersdorf near Stockerau, Lower Austria, from March to November 2023. Grenzfurthner has said that his maternal grandparentsâ wine cellar directly inspired the filmâÂÂs central mystery. In the Blu-ray bonus feature, he also said that parts of the mold-damaged location had to be filmed before they were cleared out, leading the production to shoot the opening section before later portions of the screenplay were finalized.
The film premiered at Slash Filmfestival in Vienna in September 2024:
Nightmares Film Festival hosted the U.S. premiere. Dark Nights Film Festival in Sydney presented the Australian premiere.
The film is scheduled was release by Film Movement in the United States and Canada on October 10, 2025.
Critical response has been positive. The film holds a 88% approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. 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. [...], creates and deepens a mood of growing spiritual decay. Lovecraft explored the notion that horror and madness could render physical changes, and this is delightfully pursued as well." Critic Anton Patel remarks that "the film deals in serious issues â the most serious â 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." Richard Propes (The Independent Critic) praise the performances of Gries, Cwen, and Grenzfurthner, and states: "Solvent isn't an easy film to watch and it's sure not for the timid, however, for those who prefer their cinema uncompromising and with integrity galore there may not be a more must-see film in 2024." MovieWeb included the film in its list of "10 Best International Horror Movies That Are Too Disturbing for U.S. Audiences": "Director Johannes Grenzfurthner is one of the most unique creators working in the horror genre; Solvent is a wild, bizarre, and darkly humorous ride from start to finish. The ending is the most mind-boggling yet gleefully entertaining thing perhaps ever committed to the horror genre." Rue Morgue states: "You could look at Solvent as the grossest, most festering, conspiratorial, hateful corners of the political landscape, Internet or our own primitive fear-and-control-wired minds physicalized and summoned into life."