On an empty country road on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, the very pregnant Gül (Hazar Ergüçlü) gives birth inside of a speeding truck. Much to her male partner’s horror and Gül’s inquisitive shock, the baby isn’t quite human — it’s more alien than human, in fact, a hideous-looking, pint-sized monster. While her partner leaves, Gül decides to care for her newborn offspring. But in a community where misogyny runs rampant and no one has any interest in providing support to a single mother living on society’s outskirts, motherhood is extremely difficult.

With horror as singular and disorienting as the best of Andrzej Żuławski and the emotional impact of a sledgehammer, writer-director Alphan Eseli’s exceptional Mutter is a unique marvel. In the Turkish filmmaker’s bleak and claustrophobic on-screen world, a mother’s unwavering devotion to her seed, no matter how monstrous the child may be, plays like a rallying cry for both his protagonist’s gender as well as all varieties of outsiders. Mutter is a devastating creature feature unlike any you’ve seen before.—Matt Barone