''Masking Threshold'' is a 2021 English-language Austrian

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...

directed by

Johannes Grenzfurthner Johannes Grenzfurthner (; born 1975 in Vienna) is an Austrian artist, filmmaker, writer, actor, curator, theatre director, performer and lecturer. Grenzfurthner is the founder, conceiver and artistic director of ''monochrom'', an international art ...

, and produced by art group

monochrom Monochrom (stylised as monochrom) is an international art-technology-philosophy group, publishing house and film production company. It was founded in 1993, and defines itself as "an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop att ...

Plot

A skeptic IT worker tries to cure his harrowing hearing impairment by conducting a series of experiments in his makeshift home lab. The film combines the style of a

chamber play A chamber play is a play of usually three acts which can be performed with a small cast and practically no sets or costumes in a small space. The form became popular in the early 20th century, with leading exponents being Max Reinhardt and August S ...

, a scientific procedural and the aesthetic of

unboxing Unboxing is the unpacking of products, especially high tech consumer products, where the process is captured on video and uploaded to the internet. The item is then also explained in detail and also can sometimes be demonstrated as well. Yaho ...

DIY "Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and semi ...

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

videos, with

body horror Body horror or biological horror is a subgenre of horror that intentionally showcases grotesque or psychologically disturbing violations of the human body. These violations may manifest through aberrant sex, mutations, mutilation, zombification, ...

elements and techniques known from

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, parti ...

. Grenzfurthner sees the film in the tradition of ''

extreme cinema Extreme cinema is a subgenre used for films distinguished by its use of excessive sex and violence, and such various extreme nature as mutilation and torture. It recently specializes in genre film, mostly both horror and drama. Reception The r ...

'', but presents elements of

psychological horror Psychological horror is a genre, subgenre of horror fiction, horror and psychological fiction with a particular focus on mental, emotional, and Mental state, psychological states to frighten, disturb, or unsettle its audience. The subgenre frequent ...

. In an interview with Thomas Kaestle, Grenzfurthner talks about his motivation. ::''Masking Threshold'' is a film about a suffering but stubborn and willful person whose perspective of the world and whose beliefs are turned upside down, whose dogmas are turned against the world and against himself. My protagonist is queer, so you want to understand the societal pressures on him, you want to understand the trauma he's been through and the burden of his terrible illness. But there comes a point when sympathy for him turns to horror. ..There have been a few excellent attempts to bring ''

Cosmicism Cosmicism is the literary philosophy developed and used by the American writer H. P. Lovecraft in his fiction. Lovecraft was a writer of philosophically intense horror stories that involve occult phenomena like astral possession and alien mis ...

'' to the screen, but most of the time it seems cheap. The wonderful thing about weird fiction is that we can't really imaginethe horror, that the transdimensional evil just isn't the tentacle monster that looks ridiculous as an FX puppet or as a rendered CGI representation. I've never wanted to show what my protagonist is actually talking about and what the danger looks like. But I did want to show what it drives him to do.

Cast

* Ethan Haslam as the protagonist (voice) * Johannes Grenzfurthner as the protagonist (corporeal) * Katharina Rose as Dana All other cast members are but images on the protagonist's cellphone or on photographs and printouts.

Release

''Masking Threshold'' premiered at

Fantastic Fest Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 2005 by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Alamo Drafthouse, Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, and Tim McCanlies, writer of ''The Iron Gi ...

2021 in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

. Programming director

Annick Mahnert Annick Mahnert (born 1975, Geneva) is a film festival curator and film producer. She is the director of programming at ''Fantastic Fest'', programs the ''Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival'', and has been named executive director of the Ca ...

published her decision:

Once in a while as a programmer, you come across a movie that is so special and different from anything you've seen that it sticks with you. ''Masking Threshold'' has been haunting me since I saw it, and for a long time I wondered if you, dear Fantastic Fest audience, were ready for it. But isn't it the role of a programmer to take chances and be bold? You may want to burn me at the stake for programming ''Masking Threshold'', but I'll gladly hand you the gasoline and the matches to light the pyre.

Other festivals, including Molins Horror (2021),

A Night of Horror ''A Night of Horror'' (german: Nächte des Grauens) is a 1916 silent German horror film directed by Richard Oswald, Arthur Robison and starring Werner Krauss. It is the earliest known feature-length film to portray vampires, with vampire-like ...

(2021),

Nightmares A nightmare, also known as a bad dream, Retrieved 11 July 2016. is an unpleasant dream that can cause a strong emotional response from the mind, typically fear but also despair, anxiety or great sadness. The dream may contain situations of d ...

(2021), Feratum (2021), South African Horrorfest (2021), Cucalorus,

Saskatoon Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Hig ...

, Slick 'n' Wrong, Shockfest, Film Maudit 2.0, Central Florida, Unnamed Footage in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Offscreen The terms offscreen, off camera, and offstage refer to fictional events in theatre, television, or film which are not seen on stage or in frame, but are merely heard by the audience, or described (or implied) by the characters or narrator. Offsc ...

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

Diagonale The Diagonale (Festival of Austrian Film) is a film festival that takes place every March in Graz, Austria. The festival was initially held under the auspices of the Austrian Film Commission in Salzburg from 1993 to 1995 but moved to Graz in 1998 ...

2022 in

Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...

, Panic Fest 2022, and Fantaspoa 2002 screened the film.

Distribution

Drafthouse Films Drafthouse Films is a film distribution company based in Austin, Texas which releases "provocative, visionary and artfully unusual films new and old from around the world". It was founded in 2010 by Tim League, who had previously founded the Ala ...

is distributing the film in the United States. It had a

limited theatrical release __FORCETOC__ Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...

in October 2022, and was released digitally on 7 October 2022.

Reception

Critical response

Critical response has been positive. The film holds a 100% approval rating on the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

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, with a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

of 8.2/10. Jen Yamato of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' writes: "Utilizing macro photography and ASMR-esque sound design, the immersive, experimental horror Masking Threshold pulls you down a rabbit hole where Reddit theorizing meets Lovecraftian fixation, paranoia bubbling over into a disturbing sensory experience." Erik Piepenburg of the ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' says: "2022 was a stellar year for experimental horror. I'm adding Johannes Grenzfurthner's brazen and deeply disturbing film to the year's best formbusters." ''Horror Movies Uncut'' (5/5) concludes: "Each decade must have one film that truly disturbs even the most avid horror watcher and ''Masking Threshold'' may just be that film." Bradley Gibson of ''

Film Threat ''Film Threat'' is an online film review publication, and earlier, a national magazine that focused primarily on independent film, although it also reviewed videos and DVDs of mainstream films, as well as Hollywood movies in theaters. It first ...

'' (9/10) says that "it will test your sanity. ..Despite, or perhaps because of, the graphic imagery, this feature is a brilliant look at obsession and the possible grisly endpoint of reductio ad absurdum." ''UK Film Review'' (5/5) describes it as "a claustrophobic, harrowing horror which is likely to make even the most strong willed viewer squeamish." ''iHorror'' says: "''Masking Threshold'' is unlike anything you have seen before. It’s a dose of pure insanity that is constantly brought home by macro focus and audio that pushes you all of the damn place. It is never insanity without a multilayered source. The entirety feels dangerous and a lot like riding in a race car with no seatbelt of framework." Brian Collins of ''What To Watch'' (4/5) states: "For me, I can't even think of another moviegoing experience like it. Grenzfurthner deserves some kind of award for how well he fully committed to what seems like a nightmarish set of limitations for a filmmaker and used them to his advantage." Andrew Stover of ''Film Inquiry'' summarizes: "The warped, claustrophobic horror of ''Masking Threshold'' is wholly original, making it one of the best horror films of the year. Grenzfurthner’s grim, artsy horror film is unforgettable."

KPFK KPFK (90.7 FM) is a listener-sponsored radio station based in North Hollywood, California, United States, which serves Southern California, and also streams 24 hours a day via the Internet. It was the second of five stations in the non-commerci ...

's Film Club calls it "brilliantly nightmarish." Film critic Brandon Judell praises the film's screenplay as one of best of recent years: "With the superb cinematography of Florian Hofer, and the awe-inducing editing by both Grenzfurthner and Hofer, Masking Threshold is a wry, dissective look at modern society's derangement."

Awards

* ''The Film from Hell - Best of the Festival'' at Nightmares Film Festival 2021 (

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

) * ''Best Screenplay'' at A Night of Horror International Film Festival 2021 (

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

) (for Johannes Grenzfurthner and Samantha Lienhard) * ''Being Different Award'' at Terror Molins 2021 (Spain) * ''Golden Stake Award'' at Shockfest 2021 * ''Best International Science Fiction and Fantasy Feature'' at Feratum Film Fest (Mexico) *''Best Screenplay'' at South African Horrorfest 2021 (for Johannes Grenzfurthner and Samantha Lienhard) *''Best Cinematography'' at South African Horrorfest 2021 (for Florian Hofer) *''Best Editing'' at South African Horrorfest 2021 (for Johannes Grenzfurthner and Florian Hofer) *''Best Feature Film'' at the British Horror Film Festival 2021 *''Best Trailer'' at Indie House 2022 *''Best Feature Film'' at Film Maudit 2.0 2022 (Los Angeles) *''Best Editing of the Festival'' at Unnamed Footage Festival 2022 (San Francisco)

References

External links

* *
Interview with Grenzfurthner
in ''Film Threat''

in ''Zebrabutter'' (German)
Interview with Grenzfurthner
in ''PopHorror'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Masking Threshold 2021 films Austrian horror films Austrian independent films Psychological horror films LGBT-related horror films Medical-themed films Splatter films Found footage films Films set in Florida Films shot in Austria Films set in 2019 Films about death Films about diseases Films about mental states Films about science Films about religion Films about pseudoscience Lovecraftian horror Cosmic horror Weird fiction Fiction about diseases and disorders Nerd culture Hacker culture DIY culture Middle class culture Monochrom Internet culture Films directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner 2020s English-language films