Undergods

Film audiences are accustomed to seeing post-apocalyptic wastelands on screen, so it's a relief when writer/director Chino Moya cuts away from the grim, Chernobyl-esque setting that opens his portmanteau film and dives into the first of several bizarre stories. A familiar subject - the domestic intruder who seems to slowly take over - is made engaging by compelling performances, an eerie visual style, and Wojciech Golczewski's alternately pounding and woozy synth score. New characters are introduced and fresh stories are told (or half-remembered), as the gothic fairy tales of ETA Hoffmann are invoked in a very Lynchian way. Intelligent production design heightens a glum, postmodern vision of Europe, and by the time Adrian Rawlins and Kate Dickie pop in for a comic retread of previous events, the nightmare logic of this strikingly loopy film almost makes sense.