Review #153: The Endless (2018)

This review was originally written in 2022.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #8 - The Endless (2018)

A disclaimer: Most of this review is going to be me complaining about the logistics and mechanics of this movie, and it's going to be full of spoilers. I'll try to summarize my non-mechanical thoughts as concisely as possible.

The Endless is an interesting film created by writing/directing duo Benson and Moorhead. Apart from Spring (which to my knowledge doesn't fit into this film's universe, though I could be mistaken) this was the first Benson & Moorhead joint I'd seen, and I was instantly intrigued by the premise: two brothers escaped a cult ten years ago, and after hearing that the cult was seemingly getting ready to kill themselves, they go back for one last visit to get some closure. When they get there, they realize that the cult's supernatural beliefs seem to be true, and they get caught up in a strange web of timey-wimeyness under the unseen presence of some godlike being that prefers to communicate using antiquated recording technology for some reason.

I first saw this movie a couple years ago, and going back to it today made me notice a bunch of small details in the earlier part of the film that were subtle clues to what was really going on. However, I remember my first time through coming out of the film feeling like the mechanics of the timey-wimeyness didn't really make much sense; and unfortunately, a second watch only compounded that feeling. Overall I think this is a fun film, full of some terrifying concepts and great performances, but ultimately it falls apart more and more as you continue to look at it. I also felt that its strong connection to Benson & Moorhead's previous film, Resolution, served not only to be an unnecessary easter egg in this movie, but also to make Resolution worse in retrospect. More on that in a minute; this next part is going to have spoilers galore.

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So, I really think the time-loop/bubble mechanics in this film make not a single lick of sense. What exactly is the point of a time loop if 1. everyone involved is aware of the time loop, and 2. there is seemingly nothing stopping anyone from coming and going from the time loop? Unless I'm mistaken, everyone at Camp Arcadia is fully conscious of how all of this works. They make many mentions of making money off of exporting beer, and one of the cult members talks about going to thrift stores. Shitty Carl not only knows about the other time loops (which it seems like he shouldn't be able to travel to, considering he needs the main characters to go fetch a gun for him- I guess only certain people can leave the time bubbles?) but he knows the area well enough to draw a map. How does he know so much about the area? It seemed like the movie was implying that the unseen entity had always been here, or at least had been here a very very long time, so like... was Shitty Carl's home just, I dunno, not part of a time bubble until recently? Did he never explore the area around his house? The characters from Resolution knew him and hung out with him prior to that movie, so again, how is this possible, unless the entity only created the time bubbles a few years ago? One of the cult members makes a cryptic comment about having worked on a skill for over a hundred years, so are we supposed to assume this has been going on for a hundred years? Or was that line just a red herring?

There's also a lot of page count spent on the idea that if you stick around until the end of a loop, then you'll be trapped in that loop. Maybe I misunderstood, but the main characters seemingly stick around for LOTS of loops in this movie, just not the "main" one that Camp Arcadia is waiting for. (Aaron, for example, stands well inside the marked-off area for the loop of the guy in the tent, and we visibly see and hear that loop repeating numerous times in quick succession. If he wasn't "in that loop" to the point where he should have been trapped in the loop, then WTF does it mean to stick around until the end of a loop? And was it ever explained how Shitty Carl somehow got to be in two concurrent loops (as we constantly see him walking around while his body is also hanging in his shed)? All of this just seems like the writers had a vague idea for a weird series of time loops and put very little thought into how this all fit together.

And of course, there's the Resolution scene. I said earlier that I feel like this scene retroactively makes Resolution worse, and I stand by that. The scene in The Endless seems to have a completely different tone, message, and style than Resolution, and it feels 100% to me like the writers simply took something they'd already written, and then shoehorned it into this new story they were writing without much care. Like, I get it, it's their own property and they can do what they want, but I do not believe for a second that when they wrote Resolution (even when they had their cameos as the cult members in that film), that they thought to themselves, "This area has a series of time bubbles that are constantly repeating, and by the end of this film the two protagonists will be caught in one of those." Like, Resolution had its own timey-wimey stuff in it, but taking the end of that film- where the main characters resolve their issues but get killed while trying to avoid their own deaths- and having them instead get stuck in a time loop doing the same thing over and over, just feels like it cheapens the end of that movie. And hey- remember how people in these time bubbles are seemingly able to communicate with the outside world? Why didn't Mike try, you know, calling his wife once a loop had started over? At the very least she could come visit him. There is literally nothing stopping him from reaching out to her, or her from coming into his bubble for a short while. [Edit from 2024: I haven't rewatched this movie since writing the review but I'm realizing now that one of the characters in The Endless actually IS Mike's wife, who DID come looking for him. But that just confuses the plot further because why wasn't she able to find him? Is he not literally within walking distance, and don't several characters know this?] Instead we're left with the sentiment that Mike and Chris have just hung out in this cabin, not resolving any of their issues, still sort-of playing through the events of Resolution (for some reason) and then killing themselves after a few days. If they're 100% aware of their predicament (which they totally are, they talk candidly about it), why do they still greet each other at the beginning of a loop like they're surprised to see one another? Does their consciousness only kick in partway into the week? Or is this just a lazy writer trying to shoehorn in as many references as they can?

And one more thing: so much time is spent acting like Aaron and Justin were children when they left the cult. (They call them children several times, they act like they were children, the cult leader explicitly says that they weren't targeted by the entity because they weren't adults yet, etc.) But the two actors were in their mid-30s when they made this film, their cameo in Resolution was only five years earlier (so, about age 30), and even in-universe they say they escaped the cult ten years before The Endless takes place (even if that doesn't line up with Resolution). So apparently being 25 is still childhood? I just don't get what they were going for. Why not say they left the cult twenty years ago? Or longer? Justin should have been fully aware of what the cult was or wasn't doing when he was a wee lad of the twenty-somethings.

As I said, this movie has a fun premise and some very intriguing and scary elements. But the more you look at it, the more you think about it, the less and less and less sense it makes. I went into this latest viewing fully hoping to realize all the pieces fit together, but instead I just watched as they all fell apart. But if you want an eerie romp that you don't plan on thinking about too much, you'll probably enjoy this one.

Overall Rating: 6/10 Tests of Struggle

Fun IMDB Trivia: The song "House of the Rising Sun" was used numerous times in the film as a cost-saving measure, since the lyrics are in the public domain!