Zombie apocalypse meets “Lord of the Flies” in “Parvulos,” the latest from adventurous Mexican genre specialist Isaac Ezban. Here, a familiar dystopian near-future of survival amid scarcity and violence is seen through the eyes of three underage brothers who’ve had to largely invent their own “new normal,” for lack of surviving adult minders.

By turns grotesque, whimsical, brutal and poignant, this episodic tale is more consistently interesting than riveting. Yet somehow its wayward, tonally diverse approach adds up to a distinctive hybrid that lingers in the mind, and should win over horror fans open to something more complicated than your basic undead gorefest. Not that there’s any lack of grisly (and gristly) content here.

A brief prologue of wildlife footage has a child talking in voiceover about lessons learned in Natural History class, though his father countered them by saying the only real constants in life are “family and change.