Violation, the latest feature premiering on Shudder, adheres to the old proverb “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” Its catalyst, as the title implies, is rape, but this act is merely one of many traumas that gradually drive its protagonist over the edge. What she deals in return is a plan whose execution is not easy to stomach and, psychologically, potentially damages her further.

Tonally, directors Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli borrow techniques and orchestral cues reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona to put the audience on edge. They lure you in with extended moments of slow paced, uncomfortable drama, only to blast your senses with surreal camera shots of a forest that make it feel like reality is coming undone with each revelation.

Sims-Fewer doubles as the film’s lead, Miriam, whose romantic and sexual spark with her husband, Caleb (Obi Abili), is barely there anymore, so the pair set off to a lake house occupied by Miriam’s sister, Greta (Anna Maguire), and her husband, Dylan (Jesse LaVercombe). Since neither sister has seen each other in a while, Miriam hopes this reunion will provide some means of getting a grip on her life before things truly get out of hand.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Caleb not only remains aloof but Miriam and Greta also come to blows over whether Miriam’s childhood “White Knight” status was really altruistic or just self-centered. Dylan, by comparison, is more friendly and open, leading Miriam to bond with him by a campfire in a brief moment of intimacy. She wakes up, however, to Dylan sexually assaulting her and, while we only hear his voice over close-ups of Miriam, it’s enough to imply what’s happening. Mind you, this moment takes place sometime after a different scene of Miriam luring Dylan into pretenses of sexual fantasy where, while he’s blindfolded, naked and erect, she proceeds to enact vengeance.

Told in a nonlinear fashion, Violation splits itself between the build-up to Miriam’s revenge and watching her putting that scheme into action. One minute, she’s chaining up Dylan’s legs by a wire so his legs are easier to hack off; the next, he’s fully alive and trying to gaslight Miriam into shouldering the blame for what happened between them. Theoretically, these moments are meant to depict Miriam running out of options. After she attempts to express her trauma, Greta and Caleb reveal themselves as too spiteful, unapproachable, or a combination of the two to hear Miriam out. Thus, when she commits to getting revenge on Dylan, it almost seems like she’s striking a blow against the group as a whole.

Whether intentional or not, this anarchic framing device creates the impression of watching a gritty dream unfold. When you see Dylan casually chatting with Greta or Caleb after previously witnessing his body bleed out, it forces us to see the logic behind Miriam’s desire to give them their comeuppance. Symbolic shots of animals also convey the dreamlike atmosphere at pivotal moments, from a death’s-head hawk moth resting on the ground to Miriam coming across a wolf as it buries a dead rabbit in leaves. If she’s now the wolf, it’s only because other people made her prey beforehand.

It’s a shame then that the movie’s human connections aren’t engaging. Caleb and Greta pop in and out when the story demand it as the absentee lover and disgruntled sister, but they receive no screen time that could help the characters evolve beyond archetypes. Sims-Fewer’s performance, though, holds the action together and, like a young Walter White, Miriam conveys the anguish of a woman traumatized by violence yet disturbingly capable of enacting it.

If there’s a stylistic perk to the narrative’s nonlinearity, it’s how our lack of knowledge blinds us to the scope of Miriam’s rage, letting certain, seemingly mundane actions transform into horrific revelations when you finally put the pieces together. At least that was my response to a jar from the first act whose contents, when revealed, officially give new meaning to the term “sweet revenge.”

Without a Memento–like rhythm for its chronology, Violation tends to bounce between story events rather than flow into them, making its narrative accessibility feel hit or miss. Yet it is a compelling story overall. The filmmakers visually shade in the blanks of Miriam’s actions to make them appear equally fallible and grotesque as we cover each step of the revenge spree. Additionally, Sims-Fewer neither condemns nor condones her character’s actions. Instead, she simply reveals how deep Miriam’s willing to dig this particular grave.