A fascinating and deeply unsettling experiment in audiovisual immersion, Mismantler marks a distinctive presence on the Irish independent scene. Penned and directed by Andrew Keogh, and world-premiered in the Parallax strand of this year's Cork International Film Festival, the 79-minute feature defies conventional storytelling, unfolding instead as a dark, stream-of-consciousness fever dream that resembles nothing you’ve seen before on the big screen.

The project emerged from a collaboration between Keogh, Steve Stapleton and the experimental music collective Nurse With Wound. Originally conceived as animated visuals for one of the group’s live performances, it gradually evolved into a full-length cinematic object. The titular figure, “The Mismantler”, stems from one of Stapleton’s collages – a telling origin, given the film’s layered, fractured visual identity.

Keogh’s vision draws clear inspiration from post-apocalyptic cinema lodged in our collective imagination – from The Road to The Terminator. Yet, rather than reconstructing a familiar dystopia, he turns his gaze inwards. His obstinate, close-up exploration of survival and decay brings the work closer to the psychological terrain of Eraserhead or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre than to any straightforward science-fiction narrative. It’s a world where horror is not imposed by an external catastrophe but emanates from within.

Mismantler is dominated by an eerie, overwhelming atmosphere. Every frame seems corroded by the film’s prevailing palette of rust, red and orange – tones that evoke scorched earth, oxidised metal and dried blood. This chromatic suffocation amplifies the sense of alienation: the environment looks industrial yet abandoned, familiar yet otherworldly, almost Martian. Nothing indicates where or when we are. The movie inhabits a perpetual limbo between the ruins of civilisation and the hallucinations of a troubled mind.

At its centre, there might be a protagonist – a human, or something resembling one – wandering across this desolate landscape. But Keogh offers no narrative anchor. Instead, the audience is submerged in sensory overload. The elaborate sound design, in which distorted human voices merge with metallic drones and mechanical groans, takes precedence over dialogue or plot. The result is an enveloping, frequently disorientating aural experience where every hiss or clank seems to emanate from both the environment and the psyche.

The camera mirrors this instability. At times, it scrapes along the ground, crawling among debris and cadavers; at others, it sways in hand-held style or spins aimlessly before freezing into static shots. The rhythm alternates between hypnotic stasis and frenetic disarray, reinforcing the sensation of being trapped inside a consciousness unravelling. Keogh’s imagery of decay – dog carcasses, dead insects, rusted machines – evokes disgust as much as pity, compelling the viewer to confront both physical and existential deterioration.

The question of meaning remains deliberately open. Is Mismantler depicting a hallucinatory trip, the remnants of a post-human world where faceless men and a few surviving canines wander through the ashes? Or is it an internal vision – the cinematic embodiment of depression, madness or creative dissolution? Keogh provides no answers, and therein lies the pic’s power. It demands surrender, rather than interpretation.

At times, this intensity can be exhausting. The absence of any structure and the relentless sensory assault risk numbing the viewer, but they also underline the sincerity of Keogh’s approach. His work is not designed to entertain or to comfort; it’s an act of exposure, an open wound projected in moving images.

Ultimately, Mismantler stands as a rare example of uncompromising experimental cinema that genuinely belongs on the big screen. Its strangeness is its strength – it’s a work that destabilises perception and invites reflection on the boundaries of the cinematic form itself. Whether audiences experience it as revelation or ordeal, Mismantler may find a welcome home at festivals receptive to experimental formats.

Mismantler was produced by Dublin-based Bread & Circus.