Increasingly, it seems that directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are consumed by questions of time, a theme deployed to such effective heights in their previous film, Spring. While that theme, and expansions upon it, are very much present in all their features to date, the duo have become more and more refined in their approach, culminating in their most recent effort, The Endless.
Along with their usual duties as co-directors, writer (Benson) and director of photography (Moorhead), the pair step in front of the camera this time out to play brothers named, appropriately, Aaron and Justin. As the film kicks off, the two are eking out an existence (barely) in the city, having years ago fled a cult when Justin began to fear that things were turning Jonestown-y. The delivery of a strange tape to their front door awakens long dormant feelings in both men, and at Aaron’s insistence the two return to the campgrounds to face up to their past. And then…things go weird.
The rest you’ll have to learn for yourself, but suffice to say that this is a film that opens with a Lovecraft quote and does not treat the invocation as an empty promise. While the film may be geographically small, its true scope is cosmic in nature and The Endless has the courage of its convictions, unafraid to go all-in on some deeply strange subject matter.
Benson and Moorhead have attempted this sort of combination before with their first film, Resolution, but The Endless showcases just how far they have come as filmmakers. From the early scenes that quickly and ably visually communicate the rot that has crept into the brothers’ souls, to the way the gliding camera intimates the presence of something otherworldly hanging on the margins of the film, The Endless finds the talented duo operating at the peak of their technical prowess (hell, they even one-up one of the signature shots from Spring, continuing an ongoing love affair with overhead shots). One particular showstopper finds characters engaging in a tug-of-war with someone who is both off-camera and elevated, creating the appearance of people in a contest with the moon itself.
There are a few minor digital elements that I expect/hope will be cleaned up by the time the film is ready for mass consumption, but all-in-all The Endless succeeds in conjuring an oppressive mood that permeates the frame even before the brakes come off and things get really wild. A huge part of that is the score by Jimmy Lavalle, which weaves beautifully with the camera’s motion to keep you off-balance throughout (the only musical choice I’m not sold on is recurring motif of ‘House of the Rising Sun’). You know how when John Carpenter was really cooking, just the music in his movies was enough to put you on edge even when there wasn’t anything particularly scary happening? When it really starts to get cooking, The Endless builds up that same head of moody steam, and it really gives a boost to the film’s more heady and hallucinogenic moments.
But as with Benson and Moorhead’s other collaborations, the cosmic is just an entry point into very human worries. As The Endless gets going, it quickly becomes clear that something is broken in each of these men, and something is even more deeply broken between them as brothers. As with many families, that rift has been allowed to calcify over years of emotional constipation, and it’s slowly killing both of them, just at different speeds. Justin is outwardly the more ‘together’ of the pair, but he’s carrying a lifetime of bad choices on his shoulders, while Aaron bristles with regrets and frustrations that he can barely articulate.
That’s another Benson/Moorhead touchstone, as Resolution and Spring also opened with characters reaching the end of their respective ropes and stumbling into weirdness in their attempts to shake things up. It’s easy to understand why these various characters lose themselves into the stories they wander into, just as you the audience lose yourself trying to make sense out of the shifting puzzles the filmmakers present you with.
If there’s one core knock to make against The Endless, it’s that Benson and Moorhead have once again opted to take the leisurely route with their pacing. That worked gangbusters for Spring, which drew early word-of-mouth for being a Richard Linklater-y riff on a monster movie (an opinion championed by Richard Linklater, who would probably know) and The Endless continues in this tradition. For the most part this approach still works, but The Endless introduces a ticking clock element to its final stretch that is largely ignored after it gets brought up. It’s a little strange to have our heroes continuing to stop and chat up one another when they’re ostensibly in a life-or-death race against time, but that is the aesthetic of choice for these gentlemen. That pacing leaves the climax of the film feeling like a sudden flurry of activity with a quick wrap-up, which isn’t entirely in keeping with the rest of The Endless.
But while I can understand why some folks won’t vibe with The Endless or Benson and Moorhead’s other films, I’m continuously enthralled by what these two conjure up together. I hesitate to even label The Endless ‘horror’, as scaring you is frequently the last thing on its mind. No, this is closer to old school weird fiction, uncut, science and myth and horror all rolled up together into a singular product that is unlike what anyone else is doing in the genre these days. Instead, The Endless more recalls the kind of stories you would see from Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, and, yes, the Old Providence Spook. In stories like ‘The Willows’ or ‘The Great God Pan’, flawed, messy and petty life careened into forces beyond comprehension, and all humans could do was scramble to find something to hold onto before being washed away entirely.
Benson and Moorhead seem determined to push their protagonists in much the same way, tossing them into the deep end (sometimes literally), only to kick back and demand that they figure out a way back to shore or drown. None of their films, The Endless included, are afraid to let their characters fail. In fact, The Endless even does one better and asks maybe the bleakest question of all: Is it perhaps preferable to let yourself drown rather than challenge the pre-existing order of things? Is acceptance ultimately the more inviting answer than resistance?
Where Benson and Moorhead and their eponymous characters land on that topic, I will leave for you to discover on your own time. For now, rest assured that these two have delivered another winner, dense and funny and unsettling in equal measure. Benson and Moorhead are rapidly establishing themselves as two of the more distinctive and important voices in genre cinema today, and at this moment in time, they seem to have no ceiling.
The Endless is currently playing at the Tribeca Film Festival. It screens on Wednesday and Saturday.