It’s a tricky work that’s pulled off well.

But there are so many compensations that it’s very much worth seeing for anyone who loves horror—especially the atmospheric and gory, dread-based type, rather than the kind that is single-mindedly obsessed with staging jump-scares.

The result is occult horror as potent as the snake venom in one of Selveig’s dreadful “cures.”

Stark, beautiful and perplexing, Mother of Flies feels like a rite in its own right.