This is a film that could begin with the words: once upon a time, and still feel as if ripped from the sordid pages of forgotten history books.

It's set in a small Latvian town in the 17th century, where it rains all the time and the only thing to do is either to drink, fight, or fuck. Some go to church, but only for the wine, which tastes increasingly foul. The local priest, a vile caricature of a man, preaches the coming apocalypse as he abuses his adopted son.

On the other side of town, the wealthy baron suffers from erectile dysfunction, and his inability to perform consumes his every waking moment. For him, the world could end tomorrow and it wouldn't matter as long as he got one good lay in the process.

At the center of this madness is a tavern owner who crafts potions and medicines in her spare time. The whole town relies on her, both for booze and healing, yet despises what she represents at the same time. The less they know, the more they fear, especially as hygiene isn't a chief concern for anyone.

Then, one day, a stranger arrives into town, and with him, a bulbous mass known as only The Devil's Balls.

Dog of God is a mythic, perverse, and spellbinding adult fairy tale, one that dares the audience to go along with its grotesque seduction. While it has its fair share of nudity and violence, much of the dread and terror comes from that which is left unsaid. The implications of greater injustices and horrors inflicted upon others in a land that faith has left behind.

It owes a lot of the bacchanals of Ken Russell's Devils – another bleakly seductive portrait of debauchery and religion – as it does to the works of Belgian comic book masters like Loisel and Milo Manara. Blending these foundations with spectacular rotoscope art, Dog of God is a visual treat unlike anything else you'll see this year.

The art style also allows it to go places where a regular feature absolutely couldn't. At least not without an X-rating, or worse. There are deeply troubling sequences in this film, yet they never feel tacked on or empty in their provocation. Instead, they're signs of how far this society has fallen from anything humane. It has biblical elements of Sodom and Gomorrah, framed through Baltic folklore.

Yes, it bites off more than it chew, and the ending feels somewhat stunted, leaving behind a few questions that require more answers than vibes. But those are minor complaints when the rest of the film is this strong.

At its best, Dog of God is the kind of exquisite nightmare that, when experienced in a cinema, stays with you for good. In years to come, you'll wonder if it was a fever dream all along, and a part of you will want to leave it at that. Lingering somewhere in the dark recesses of our memory like the best kind of old folktales shared by the fire.