Like “It Follows” and “Buzzard,” “Lost River” uses bleak Michigan scenery as the backdrop for a form of horror film. Although set in a made-up city, the movie — the feature directorial debut of Ryan Gosling, who also wrote the screenplay — was shot in moribund Detroit neighborhoods. Dilapidated houses, overgrown lawns and abandoned buildings give this demented fantasia a surreal charge.

Billy (Christina Hendricks), a single mother and one of the few remaining residents of the city, Lost River, has fallen behind in repaying a predatory loan. The bank manager (Ben Mendelsohn) offers her a job at a club that specializes in bloody burlesque acts. (In the creepiest set piece, Billy, performing, appears to slice off her face.)

Image Iain De Caestecker in "Lost River," directed by Ryan Gosling. Credit... Warner Bros. Pictures

The older of Billy’s two sons, Bones (Iain De Caestecker), scavenges houses for copper. His neighbor Rat (Saoirse Ronan) explains that nearby towns were once flooded to make room for a reservoir. “Lost River” ponders people and places left behind in the name of progress. Slyly political, it observes the mortgage crisis through a warped looking glass. The cinematographer, Benoît Debie, finds a perverse beauty in the decline.