Ever since both the cognoscenti and the public at large embraced independent filmmaking, what was once considered weird is now, for the most part, regarded as simply quirky. Which is why a film such as Hungarian director György Pálfi’s Taxidermia must be embraced; it sets a new benchmark in bizarre cinema.

The surreal plot, composed of a trio of interlinked tales (two based on short stories by Parti Nagy Lajos, and one by Pálfi himself), spans 60 years and follows three male generations of a family obsessed in one way or another with the functions of the human form. Each of the segments is visually defined by a bodily fluid: fuelled by outrageous sexual fantasies, a lovelorn soldier wanks himself senseless – that’s spunk; an obese individual attempts to become a speed-eating champion – spit (depicted as projectile vomiting); and a young taxidermist experiments with immortality in the most disturbing way imaginable – blood.

Pálfi directs with the same vision you imagine might have fuelled the work of artists such as Francis Bacon, Salvador Dali and Hieronymus Bosch. Tapping into man’s greatest loves, hates and fears, he literally displays them like an eviscerated corpse. He finds horror in beauty and vice versa, as he transforms the repellent and routine aspects of life into baroque depictions of unusual beauty. Watching proceedings unfold is like freefalling through your worst nightmares. Each frame bursts with varying degrees of death, destruction, sexual anxiety, and more viscera than a month at your local abattoir.

Such a visual onslaught on the senses means the viewer will either love or loathe Taxidermia. But whatever your opinion, there’s no denying this film is enormously eccentric, unpredictable, and one of the biggest celluloid headf--ks ever. Which makes for compulsive viewing – in a car-crash kind of way.