The second time I saw the road thriller "Sirāt," I couldn't wait to hear the audience moan. Months earlier, I'd stumbled dazed out of its Cannes premiere already excited to see it again with a crowd and when I finally did, those moans came earlier, a hint that some folks had been tipped off to steel themselves. That's all I'll give away about the sharp turns in Spain's punkish, prankish and strangely existential Oscar submission (which already won Cannes' Jury Prize). Seeing it blank would be best, but it's my job to poke you to go.

"Sirāt" is by the filmmaker Oliver Laxe, an intense bohemian who would blend in at the rave in Morocco where his hypnotic film begins. In this stretch of dramatic desert flanked by the Atlas Mountains, men assemble stacks of speakers — a wall to keep a horde of Western invaders in. Electronic music starts to thump, rubbery pulsars bouncing over a steady beat. These bleeps sound alive and then suddenly, there is life: hundreds of pleasure-seekers stomping in the sand as laser beams outline alien towers over these orange cliffs.

This isn't a Coachella or Burning Man crowd. People go to the former to be seen, the latter to build and explore. Those are vacations. "Sirāt's" bacchanal is for permanent burnouts who've lost themselves at the intersection of transcendence and oblivion. Most of these folks are so far gone, so permanently scarred with body modifications, that there's no coming back to so-called polite society. There's only this song and the next one, and a guess of where the party might head next.

The vibe is exuberant and anarchic and very much in tempo with the joy-craving fatalism of today. (Related: I've heard the club scene is crushing it in Tel Aviv and Kyiv.) But trance music is merely a modern spin on an ancient ritual. The whirling Sufi dervishes have known for ages that dance is spiritual. You can see that time-bending mash-up in the costumes, with some folks in bright plastic wigs and others in horns and mohawks and dreadlocks like 21st century cavemen.

Laxe and cinematographer Mauro Herce shoot this otherworldly opening sequence like a documentary. With few words and next-to-no backstory, they allow two groups to emerge. The first is a friend clique made of nonprofessional actors Tonin Janvier, Richard "Bigui" Bellamy, Stefania Gadda, Joshua Liam Henderson and Jade Oukid, a scrawny woman whose watchful eyes peg her as the person we want to trust. They're all performing under their own names with their own tattoos and, in the case of Janvier and Bellamy, their own missing limbs. Real actors could fake the get-ups, but not the ease they have in the dirt.

Our way into this scene, however, is through two outsiders, Luis (Sergi López) and his 12-year-old son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona). They've journeyed from Spain to find Esteban's missing teenage sister who ran off to join an offshoot of this traveling festival months ago. Does the girl even want to be found? Who knows. But the sweet, polo shirt-clad Luis is so normal that he's easy to spot in the crowd. (López, a veteran Spanish movie star, plays Luis with such sheepishness that it takes a minute to recognize him as "Pan's Labyrinth's" villainous Captain Vidal.)

It's a buzzkill to see the military arrive a few minutes into the movie and shut the bash down. Claiming there's a national emergency, the soldiers command everyone to pack up their vehicles and exit in an orderly traffic jam. But these ravers have driven all the way out here as a rejection of conformity — so why obey now? Jade's gang escapes in two big buses with Luis and Esteban bouncing behind in their minivan, a cute dog on the kid's lap. Now the adventure really begins.

You might have a few reasonable guesses where this story is headed. They're probably wrong. Lately, it seems, the risk-averse screenwriting rules of what-should-happen-by-which-page that have steered Hollywood movies for far too long are feeling especially threadbare. As that way of filmmaking implodes, audiences are turning to movies that rebel. Like this one.

"Sirāt" is taut and riveting and nearly all mood. You feel the exhilaration of veering off the path, the self-exile of speeding toward nowhere, the dread that this caravan has veered too far for its own safety. Beyond that, columns of black smoke on the horizon and ominous news broadcasts on the radio warn that the cities might not be worth returning to. Editor Cristóbal Fernández has timed Kangding Ray's techno soundtrack to keep pace with the mood on the road, even matching the rhythm to the white lines zipping by on the pavement. There's an enormity in these nighttime shots of cars isolated in the darkness, chasing after the dust in their own headlights, looking so alone they may as well be on the moon.

The film's title is a reference to the path to paradise in the Islamic faith, explained in a few hasty sentences of text right at the start. It's a hint to think about the risks of straying from the straight and narrow, and the hellfire that comes with a slip. The characters themselves never mention religion, which means you're left to chew on what that layer of the movie means to you. I kept circling back to the same question: Is it fair to test anyone's righteousness?

Laxe's propulsive script has only a few scraps of dialogue that come close to a statement, say when Bellamy wonders if this is how the end of the world feels. That line lands a bit too heavily. More unnerving is how often hapless Luis asks his son what they should do. The kid is too young and plucky to be scared that his father doesn't know.

People will leave talking about the ending, although it's a bit of a fizzle — a tense shrug. (See "House of Dynamite" for another.) But the road there is littered with skittering, fascinating ideas. Are these resourceful misfits the right people to join if you want to survive the apocalypse? Would following those soldiers have been any better? As different as Luis and Jade and their respective packs are, the moments when they come together are uplifting. But over the long haul, you can't help but notice that their willingness to help one another does even more damage. Every day, they're all chugging closer to disaster.

When things get really dire for these characters, you'll hear those moans — and maybe a couple of bleak chuckles, too. The titters would feel dismissive, except that they also fit the tone's grand-scale terror. Even these radicals can't outrun the horrors of civilization. I suspect "Sirāt" thinks it's laughable how few good options anyone has left.

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'SIRĀT'

(In Spanish, French, Arabic and English, with subtitles)

No MPA rating

Running time: 1:55

How to watch: In theaters Nov. 14

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