The longing separations from seafaring life have spawned many romantic ghost stories, and while it largely takes place on dry land, the Danish film “No Rest for the Wicked” provides an honorable addition to that list. Kaspar Kalle’s assured debut, drawn from an 1884 story by German author Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, an early advocate of gay rights, walks a sometimes murky line between love story and horror. But the more sinister aspects ultimately turn out to be deliberate misdirection in this story of two men who meet in the remote Faroe Islands in the mid-19th century. In the end, any uneven quality in Kaspar Kalle’s beautifully atmospheric sophomore film dissipates into a poignant melancholy reminiscent of “Brokeback Mountain” and “All of Us Strangers.”

In 1862, Baldur (Egor Venned) is a taciturn young man who lives with his widowed mother Asla (Sofia Nolsoe). One day, while out fishing alone, he is enveloped by mysterious clouds and then hears cries for help, although once he accidentally hits his head on a rock, it is Baldur who is rescued by Helge (Pilou Asbaek), a 40-year-old sailor who had gotten lost on an unknown side of the island. They return to Asla’s cabin, where she is charmed by her gregarious guest. Baldur is more circumspect, upset at having temporarily lost his ship in the mishap and unsettled by Helge’s teasing manner, which could be interpreted as adversarial or flirtatious. Nevertheless, the visitor fills his head with thoughts of adventure and of the many things Baldur has never seen: not a tree nor a mountain, for starters.

Later, their tentative friendship develops into something more passionate, much to the dismay of the eavesdropping Asla, who realizes that she is not the party Helge’s charm was aimed at. When a whaling ship docks, both men are ready to join as a crew. But after having sacrificed her husband to the sea, Baldur’s mother is reluctant to also lose her only son. Maternal guilt works its magic and leaves Helge to set sail alone. However, bad winds force him to return too soon, like one of the many corpses washed ashore from a shipwreck. Offended, Baldur makes a blood wish for his lover to “return.”

At this point, things take a supernatural leap that has already been foreshadowed by various visions and nightmares. Is Helge some “evil force,” as Asla suggests, even a vampire? When he becomes alarmed enough to alert other villagers to his fears, the sailor’s unearthed corpse turns out to be disconcertingly warm and intact, and a kind of contagion begins to spread to others.

Ulrichs’s original brief story reads more like a plot outline than a fully realized fiction, almost as if it were intended to be recited orally. Rasmus Birch and Kalle’s script makes useful changes to that model, replacing crudely literal aspects with more suggestive ones, reducing dialogue to make room for effective visual storytelling. They get excellent help in that department from cinematographer Jacob Moller, who makes the most of the poetically austere locations. Those images are complemented by persuasive period design elements and an original score by Hettarher that encompasses some wordless choral passages.

Venned, a successful model (and Faroese native) making his screen debut, sports the kind of looks and physique that are almost too idealized for the stage. Plus, they make him an odd companion for the noticeably older Asbaek, who is in ingratiating shape. But the newcomer holds his own in terms of acting with his much more experienced co-star. Nolsoe is very supportive. In her role as well as others, Kalle downplays the explicit homophobia that might have turned this into a more simplistic allegory, making Asla less a figure of meddlesome jealousy than a woman who simply doesn’t want to be abandoned once again. Love finally triumphs in “No Rest for the Wicked,” a denouement that is unsettling and requires literal uneasiness to reach.