The Endless (15.)
Directed by Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead.
Starring Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead, Callie Hernandez, James Jordan, Tate Ellington, Lew Temple and Justin Benson. 109 mins.
The pricking of your curiosity at the start of The Endless is so sharp it is almost painful. The directors Benson and Moorhead play brothers who ten years previously escaped from a UFO Suicide Cult, and are still struggling to adjust to life in the outside world. So much so that the younger one Aaron wants to go back for a visit, feeling nostalgic for the healthy outdoor life they had and resentful that despite his brother's promise, the Suicide Cult are all still alive. Indeed, everybody looks indecently young. As they slowly build up the mystery you are on tenterhooks hoping that they aren't going to mess it up.
For over an hour the film is a solid, sensible mystery. Only in its last third does it become something wilder. It is vaguely reminiscent of a Shane Carruth film, the writer/ director of Primer and Upstream Colour, films whose fans fill the internet with flowcharts and diagrams attempting to explain their plots. The Endless is a head spinner, but calibrated to a much lower speed. If you pay attention I think you'll have a working understanding by the end.
Directed by Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead.
Starring Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead, Callie Hernandez, James Jordan, Tate Ellington, Lew Temple and Justin Benson. 109 mins.
The pricking of your curiosity at the start of The Endless is so sharp it is almost painful. The directors Benson and Moorhead play brothers who ten years previously escaped from a UFO Suicide Cult, and are still struggling to adjust to life in the outside world. So much so that the younger one Aaron wants to go back for a visit, feeling nostalgic for the healthy outdoor life they had and resentful that despite his brother's promise, the Suicide Cult are all still alive. Indeed, everybody looks indecently young. As they slowly build up the mystery you are on tenterhooks hoping that they aren't going to mess it up.
For over an hour the film is a solid, sensible mystery. Only in its last third does it become something wilder. It is vaguely reminiscent of a Shane Carruth film, the writer/ director of Primer and Upstream Colour, films whose fans fill the internet with flowcharts and diagrams attempting to explain their plots. The Endless is a head spinner, but calibrated to a much lower speed. If you pay attention I think you'll have a working understanding by the end.
