Harking back to darkly fantastical rural-setting flicks like The Cars That Ate Paris and Wake in Fright, writer/director Dario Russo’s oddball fable The Fox transports us to a regional town in a parallel universe where animals can talk.

The story is set in motion when Nick (Jai Courtney) and his dad (Frankie J. Holden) corner the fox that has been preying on their chooks. As Nick raises his shotgun to finish the job, the fox tries to strike a deal. Spare my life, it says (voiced by British star Olivia Colman), and she will show Nick how to turn his wayward and reluctant bride-to-be, Kori (Emily Browning), into a perfectly obedient wifey. All he has to do is shove her into an open mineshaft in the woods and wait a few days for her to reemerge a (very) changed woman. Simple as.

Taking the fox at her word, Nick bundles Kori into the hole and, sure enough, when she does come back (naked and covered in dirt), she’s quite different. Kori is now very much devoted to Nick and sexually feral to boot.

But it’s a case of...