There’s a lot of genre talent working behind and in front of the camera in Eli, a hybrid mix of medical thriller, paranormal ghost story and...well, other stuff. It’s directed by Ciarán Foy, who’s most known for his work on Sinister 2. Bear McCreary composed the score. It’s written by Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing, who gave us the incredible story behind The Autopsy of Jane Done, and David Chirchirillo, who wrote Cheap Thrills. And honestly, the story feels pulled from those disparate directions.

There’s no dancing around it, Eli goes in some batshit bonkers directions. And I’m here for it.

But before we get there, let’s start at the beginning. Young Eli (Charlie Shotwell) has this recurring nightmare where he’s running through a bright field before falling to the ground, gasping, his face turning into a rash that is one step away from pure burning. In truth, he’s trapped in a bubble. He has a weird immunodeficiency syndrome where the very world around him can kill him.

His mother Rose (Kelly Reilly) tries to comfort him as best she can, but there’s only so much she can do. Along with his father Paul (Max Martini), they’re on their way to to see a doctor who can cure him. They’ve spent their remaining money on this trip and it’s their last ditch effort to give Eli a normal life.

They pull up to a manor that belongs in an old British horror film. It’s old, Gothic, gray and foreboding with a constant haze of fog surrounding the grounds. The manor has been retrofitted with the latest medical amenities, including a decontamination chamber--the only way in and out of the house.

Quickly, we meet Dr. Isabella Horn (Lili Taylor) and her two nurses Mary (Katia Gomez) and Barbara (Deneen Tyler). As the family gets settled into their new home, Dr. Horn prepares Eli for the three step treatment that will cure him. But the house creaks, the pipes moan and Eli starts seeing things that shouldn’t be there. Ghostly beings. While he starts treatment, which includes a number of side-effects including hallucinations, Eli starts up a friendship with Haley (Sadie Sink), a girl who lives down the road and talks to him through the window panes.

But as the treatments start to do their thing, Eli starts to realize that things aren’t exactly what they seem and falls down a rabbit hole of paranoia and ghostly stalkings. But most terrifying: What if the people meant to protect him are actually making him worse?

Just as the manor is a Frankenstein’d mess of old Gothic horror and hospital thriller, the story is similarly patched together. By framing the story on a sick child, the film smartly taps into two distinct fears. That of a kid who knows something is going on but is ignored by his parents and the adults. And that of the paranoia that comes from a medical thriller, where you’re not quite sure if the things you see are real or are hallucinations. That last part, in particular, is ripe for exploration. I’ve had friends who’ve taken Malaria immunity shots, for example, who later hallucinated a room filled with dead people.

Kid actors can be hit or miss, but Foy pulls a fantastic performance from Charlie Shotwell. An early scene where Eli takes off his hazmat suit and hugs his mom, skin to skin, for the first time in four years was actually heart-wrenching. And he handles the constantly flipping narrative with ease that belies his age. The moments where he is panicked, wishing his parents would listen to him mixed with Kelly Reilly’s performance as the mother who knows it’s the medicine talking are actually very powerful.

Meanwhile, cinematographer Jeff Cutter films Eli with the same style he brought to 10 Cloverfield Lane. A couple effective scares and tension-filled segments really standout, particularly as it uses shadow, misdirection and things hidden in plain sight to surprise. It’s all very standard ghost story/medical paranoia stuff for about two-thirds of the movie. Effective, but nothing to really write home about. The majority of the movie doesn’t feel like it’s attempting to do anything new. It just does what it does with some fantastic performances.

The third act happens.

Readers, the place Eli goes is...well, it’s cuckoo bananas to borrow a phrase from Trace Thurman. What started as a rather typical spookathon morphs into something quite different. Because of this, the reception will be divisive;it’s sitting at 17% on Rotten Tomatoes as I’m editing this. But I absolutely love it when a movie is willing to take such a wild swing. And swing they do as the story Frankensteins yet again into something completely different.

Somehow it manages to pull it all together and I found myself laughing (and clapping?!) in pure shock and joy at the ridiculousness. The narrative makes an audacious decision but it's handled with such an assured hand that you can't help but respect it. Because the first two thirds are grounded in realistic drama and fantastic performances, I was willing to let the bonkers plotting grab my hand and jerk me along.

It won’t work for everyone, but damn did I enjoy Eli.