A pivotal scene in “mother!” is so disturbing that it’s hard to call this new film anything but a straight-out horror movie. Yet the moment also is meant to serve as an allegory of climate change, species extinction and other environmental woes.

“We’re all on this planet together with a tremendous amount of bounty, but it’s definitely finite and we’re seeing the results of our insatiable appetite,” director Darren Aronofsky said in a recent interview. “I took that energy and tried to weave it into something that’s not really...