“Butt Boy” is, on its face, thoroughly absurd. Yet no matter how weird or tasteless it becomes, the movie refuses to be dismissed as a juvenile provocation. It’s too clever for that, too sympathetic toward addiction and grief, and too understanding of the loneliness of the unloved. Chip is filling a void that his marriage and career have vacated. Russell is also empty, but the reason for his pain is withheld until the third act. Until then, we see only hints, playing out in weirdly comic behavior that becomes surprisingly touching once its context is revealed.

The larger shocks come not from Chip’s terrifying tuchis, but from the unexpected loveliness of some of the film’s images. (The color palette doesn’t turn scatological until the ingeniously designed finale.) Slathered in turquoise and carmine, neons and pastels, sequences accumulate an occasional dreaminess that defies the typical constraints of low-budget filmmaking. In one beautiful, baffling scene, Russell climbs a tree at night to spy on a man and woman in their apartment, and Cornack allows the image to settle until it becomes inexplicably moving. This undercurrent of pathos not only fortifies the essential connection between the two leads, but also presents their predicament as something more than farcical.

Merging monster movie, serial-killer story and deadpan comic noir, Cornack and his co-writer, Ryan Koch, have produced something that’s aggressively original and undeniably polarizing. Viewers will be in no doubt as to where they stand — though it probably shouldn’t be behind Chip.

Butt Boy

Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Rent or buy on iTunes, Google Play, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.