Joining the likes of classics like The Wicker Man and this year’s Get Out, filmmaker Govinda Van Maele’s striking Gutland is a haunting mystery about an outsider discovering the startling secrets behind a seemingly idyllic community.

Refused work upon his arrival in a picturesque village in Luxembourg, stoic German Jens (Frederick Lau, Victoria) resorts to spending his evening drinking at a town party. But his unemployment doesn’t last long when, after a night spent with the enchanting, Lucy (Vicky Krieps, Phantom Thread), he is offered a surprisingly generous farmhand position. Seduced by the small town’s charms and harboring his own secretive past, Jens is slow to realize the disturbing habits of even the village’s most chummy inhabitants.

Brimming with thrilling and often uncomfortably comedic scenes, including a terrifying homage to North by Northwest’s cornfield chase, Gutland is a remarkably confident and captivating debut that admiringly holds its cards close until the very end.