In the 17th century Livonian village of Zaube, there’s something in the air, something potentially sinister and ripe with nightmarish ramifications. Several of the village’s residents can feel it: from the burly pastor’s scared, young errand boy to the local tavern’s maid. The danger manifests itself loud and clear when the pastor accuses the maid of witchcraft, leading to a trial during which an elder man proclaims himself to be a werewolf — not the traditional Lon Chaney, Jr. kind of werewolf but, rather, one rooted in Latvian folklore and hewing closer to a mad shaman. How all this tension comes to a head will change the village and its surviving inhabitants forever.

While the Latvian film Flow won Best Animated Feature at this year’s Academy Awards, giving the country its first-ever Oscar, the aggressively adult and visually wild Dog of God is something else entirely for Latvian animation. Employing rotoscope animation, siblings and co-directors Raitis and Lauris Ābele have crafted a delirious and horror-tinged fever dream of psychedelia that harkens back to the audacious and edgy animation days of filmmakers like Ralph Bakshi and cult classics like Heavy Metal.—Matt Barone

Lauris Abele and Raitis Abele