Panos Cosmatos’s “Beyond the Black Rainbow” is the best looking non-slasher slasher film since “Drive.”

That’s to say, both films hypnotize viewers with a phenomenal visual style and a fantastic retro synth score. Both films descend somewhat unexpectedly into slasher horror movie motifs in their third acts. The difference is that while “Drive” told a traditional and solid story (albeit at a slow pace), “Beyond the Black Rainbow” attempts something far more ambiguous, far more ambitious and at an exceedingly slower pace.

The movie takes us back to a VHS-fueled 1983, where an ominous scientist named Barry (Michael Rogers) observes a mysterious mute girl named Elena (Eva Allan) within the confines of a highly-stylized scientific facility. Think a healthy mix of Kubrick’s “2001″ and Don Coscarelli’s “Phantasm” — that’s the sort of world the film takes us through.