Wildling is a genre-blending beast of its own: a gory fairytale, a horror film, a dark fantasy, a coming-of-age drama. And co-writer/director Fritz Bohm has given it a lasting impression more so than most current horror features, simultaneously paying homage to classics while inventing a new one of its kind.

In Bohm’s debut feature, Anna (Bel Powley) spends her entire childhood locked away in an attic under the care of a man she has only known as Daddy (Brad Dourif), whose reasoning for keeping her in captivity is to protect her from the “Wildling,” a fearsome beast who captures and eats children. However, when Anna begins to hit puberty, Daddy starts to inject her with a strange medication that prevents her from reaching sexual maturity–with all the modern-day connotations of the nickname “Daddy,” we begin to believe that this may lead to sexual abuse and within the first few minutes of the film we are already sufficiently creeped out.

For sixteen years, this is all Anna has ever known, until she is rescued by a kind small-town sheriff named Ellen Cooper (Liv Tyler), who attempts to rehabilitate Anna into a normal social life as a teenager, as well as track down her origin. But without Daddy’s medicine, Anna’s body finally begins to blossom, her childhood nightmares return with a vengeance, and leads to the conclusion of a terrifying secret.

Wildling is a dark fairytale, a Brothers Grimm story for the present day, that personifies the physical horror and mental anxiety of reaching sexual maturity. For a strong female protagonist, it’s not only difficult for her to understand, but for everybody around her to as well.

Though certain scenes clearly give a nod to several classic werewolf films (Teen Wolf, An American Werewolf in London, etc.), much of the film’s brilliance comes from Bohm’s abstinence from many of the stereotypical tropes of those films and creating an entirely new creature with a new kind of origin and meaning.

Powley’s performance as Anna is remarkable to watch, as she perfectly embodies the character’s wide-eyed curiosity and confusion as she attempts to navigate young adulthood with no prior references besides what she had heard and seen from the confines of her attic bedroom. Dourif’s performance as Daddy is as heartbreaking as much as it induces a need for a shower. Bohm’s choice of Toby Oliver (Get Out, Happy Death Day) as a cinematographer was a wise one, who frequently casted shadows across the characters’ faces that were as dark as their fates. I couldn’t help but notice a bit of a decline in the attention to detail towards the last third of the film, where many of the action shots were so dimly lit that it was difficult to make out exactly what was happening at times. Maybe I just need glasses.

No spoilers here, but Wildling has a satisfying ending, reassuring us that it’s okay to embrace our inner untamed beasts.