The apocalypse shines an eerie shade of gold in director/co-writer F. Javier Gutiérrez’s haunting, genre-bending take on the downfall of humanity. Shifting gears from domestic drama to rite-of-passage saga to nightmarish thriller with effortless efficiency, Before the Fall (co-written by Juan Velarde) shows that even when death is inevitable, the struggle for survival goes on. And though the film may irritate some for its staunch refusal to fit into any certain genre or mold, it’s precisely that trait that makes it a fascinating treat for fans of innovative and unpredictable cinema.

Shiftless handyman Alejandro (Víctor Clavijo) always lived in the shadow of his older brother — the fallen hero of his small town — and these days Ale has resigned himself to the fact that he will never amount to much of anything. When Ale was just a young boy, his brother played a key role in capturing Soro, a vicious child killer who held the town of Laguna in the cold grip of fear. Flash forward to the present day, and Ale is heading off to work after a long night of partying when news reports reveal that a meteor five times the size of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs is on a collision course with Earth. Every effort to stop it has ended in failure, and humanity has approximately 72 hours before mankind meets the same fate as their prehistoric predecessors. When Ale’s mother, Rosa (Mariana Cordero), sees a news report about prison guards abandoning their posts and inmates running free, she becomes convinced that Soro will return to seek revenge against Ale’s brother as he once vowed, and races to the countryside to protect her family. Arriving at her heroic son’s country home to find that he and his wife have apparently left their four young children to face the end of the world alone, Rosa attempts to protect the kids from the cataclysmic truth while preparing for Soro’s inevitable arrival. Later, rising tensions come to a head after Rosa dies under mysterious circumstances and the son who never amounted to anything is forced to protect his nephews and nieces from a threat he can’t comprehend. Enter Lucio (Eduard Fernández), a jovial stranger who arrives at the house claiming to be an old friend of Ale’s brother. When Lucio’s true identity is brought into question by a suspicious Ale, the situation descends into a macabre waiting game that could erupt into violence at any moment.

Within the first 15 minutes of Before the Fall, the government has announced that the world is coming to an end, society has collapsed, and a distraught drug store owner has murdered his entire family before gritting his teeth over the business end of a rather large shotgun and pulling the trigger — dashing any hopes for a quirky, Don McKellar-style take on the topic at hand. But, while Before the Fall may have more in common with Miracle Mile than it does with Last Night, the fact that it maintains a nerve-wracking level of intensity while keeping the action so intimate ensures that it shares the good company of both movies. Fans of apocalyptic cinema will surely be taken by the speculative sci-fi angle of the setup, while those who prefer their thrillers served with a dark streak of horror will relish the grim goings-on that begin to unfold in the middle of the film, as Ale faces a threat arguable more terrifying than any world-destroying space rock.

Since Gutiérrez and Velarde make the decision to tell their story on a smaller scale, it’s crucial that the characters onscreen are completely credible, and with Clavijo, Cordero, and Fernández in the leads, the cast is more than up to the task. In his role as the wayward Ale, Clavijo maintains a gruff persona that belies his thin skin, stretched tightly over a wounded ego that’s swollen with bitterness and sorrow; as Rosa, Cordero displays the quiet dignity of a proud mother and loving grandmother with humble intensity; and Fernández makes the blood run ice cold as the unsettlingly calm stranger who may or may not be the devil in disguise. Of course, even the best characters are useless if the screenplay isn’t there to back them up, and by carefully balancing the apocalyptic and human aspects of the story while revealing key details from the past at precisely the right moments, Gutiérrez and Velarde keep tension levels steadily rising as the action careens toward a horrific climax. Miguel Ángel Mora’s gorgeous, sun-soaked cinematography lends the film a seductive air of desolation that captivates right up to the film’s mesmerizing final shot, ensuring that even if the final moments feel a little hackneyed, we can’t pry our eyes off the sky as impact becomes imminent.