Pulp meets the human condition in Black Snake Moan, filmmaker Craig Brewer's follow-up to his 2005 breakout hit, Hustle & Flow. Its premise is outrageous, one that would have made a helluva Roger Corman drive-in flick in the early Seventies: a scantily clad, white-trash nymphomaniac is chained to the radiator of a scripture-quoting African-American bluesman in the Mississippi Delta. The movie's promotional posters exploited the sexually charged imagery for all it was worth.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the grindhouse. Writer-director Brewer invests his B-movie caricatures with passion and humanity, even as he ratchets up the overheated overtones. Impressively, Black Snake Moan revels in its decidedly weird mojo even as it treats its characters with care and respect. Perhaps it's no coincidence that Brewer lists Baby Doll as having been an influence here.

Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson) is an aging blues musician whose wife has left him for his brother. He crawls into a whiskey bottle and destroys his wife's rose garden, but nothing eases the pain. Then another complication arises. Hungover and hauling out the trash one morning, Lazarus finds an unconscious young woman sprawled out on the side of the road. Bruised and bloodied, she is clad only in a tank top and white cotton panties.

The woman is Rae (Christina Ricci), the town nympho. She has been beaten and left for dead, the result of a drunken night after her boyfriend, Ronnie (Justin Timberlake), has shipped off for military training for Iraq.

Lazarus faces a quandary. He knows better than to notify the cops; police don't look kindly on black men who inexplicably come across white women beaten to a pulp.

He soon learns about Rae and her curious sexual dysfunction. Haunted by terrifying memories of an abusive stepfather, she is addicted to sex and evidently unable to curb her impulses. And so Lazarus does the only responsible thing. He chains her to his radiator, pulls out his Bible and resolves to help her mend her wicked ways.

Like Hustle & Flow, Brewer wrings pathos from characters who easily could have been pulp-fiction creations in other hands. The movie crackles with emotional resonance. Lazarus and Rae are broken, flawed, frightened and angry, both of them weighted down by past wrongs. In each other, however, they find comfort and unconditional love -- the platonic kind, that is -- through shared grief. Like the blistering blues music that saturates the film like an August heat wave, Black Snake Moan explores the salvation that can emerge from the manifestation of pain.

To be sure, the picture also has a great deal to do with the healing power of the blues. Brewer dedicates Black Snake Moan to the late R.L. Burnside and kicks things off with vintage black-and-white footage of Delta blues legend Son House. It sets the appropriate vibe for a killer soundtrack featuring Burnside, the Black Keys, the Heartless Bastards and Junior Kimbrough. And Samuel L. Jackson is mighty impressive providing vocals on a number of tunes, including the old Blind Lemon Jefferson song, "Black Snake Moan."

The acting is excellent. Jackson is customarily larger than life as the tough, upright and somewhat scary Lazarus. It is arguably Ricci's finest, fiercest work to date (and not just because of the wardrobe department), with Timberlake memorable as her tortured lover.

Presented in widescreen 2.35:1 and enhanced for 16x9 televisions, Black Snake Moan is a near-flawless print transfer that captures the film's bold colors and sharp detail. No complaints.

As befits a movie steeped in the raw, howling music of the Mississippi Delta, the DVD boasts a rich and immersive Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround mix. A 2.0 audio track is also available in English, Spanish and French. Subtitles are in Spanish and English.

Writer-director Brewer's commentary is enthusiastic, comprehensive and thoroughly engaging. It becomes clear that Black Snake Moan is a very personal work. Regardless of its exploitation undertones, this is a movie with real heart.

Conflicted: The Making of Black Snake Moan is an entertaining mini-documentary boasting interviews with cast and crew. The 28-minute featurette includes some amusing asides. Ricci, for example, was allowed to select the chain that binds her. Brewer apparently cast Kim Richards as Rae's mom because he'd been nursing a crush ever since he was a kid and saw her as a child actress in 1975's Escape from Witch Mountain and its 1978 sequel, Return to Witch Mountain (a crush, incidentally, shared by this reviewer).

Rooted in the Blues (12:37) covers how Brewer and music composer Scott Bomar assembled the movie's blues music. As Brewer puts it, "I'm trying to make movies that Rufus Thomas or Elvis Presley would've gotten a big ole kick seeing." He likely succeeds. The featurette showcases some of the amazing musicians who came on board this project.

Black Snake Moan is a nine-minute examination of the song, from its origins to the painstaking care that went into shooting the scene where Lazarus plays it for Rae.

Five deleted scenes have an aggregate running time of 12 minutes, 22 seconds. Viewers can watch each separately or opt for the "play all" feature, with commentary by Brewer also optional. Fans of the movie will find the material worth checking out, especially a flashback of Rae and Ronnie meeting for the first time.

Also included is a still photo gallery and previews for Year of the Dog, Zodiac, Shooter and Hustle & Flow.

Black Snake Moan requires an investment from its audience. Either you're willing to buy its characters or you're going to roll your eyes at the absurdity of the situation of it all. The movie is undeniably absurd, but Brewer and his talented cast have faith in their story and the artistic audacity to pull it off. With a great print and a spectrum of appealing extras, Black Snake Moan finds a fine home on DVD.