It’s been an incredibly exciting half-decade or so in terms of the emergence of new horror directors. It seems barely a month or two goes by without some immensely talented filmmaker emerging from the genre and making a name for themselves. Some, like James Wan, Adam Wingard or David Sandberg, graduate to blockbuster fare. Others, like Jordan Peele or Jennifer Kent, win immense critical acclaim, and others still, like Mike Flanagan, continue to stick to the genre, winning more and more fans with each film.
But with so much out there, there are some directors who haven’t quite gotten to be known at the same level despite the promising work they’ve produced in the last few years. At the top of that list, as far as we’re concerned, are Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead. The duo first turned heads with their 2012 mind-bending debut “Resolution,” contributed a segment to the anthology sequel “V/H/S: Viral,” and most recently made the deeply underseen and underrated Lovecraftian romance “Spring,” starring Lou Taylor Pucci. Now they’re back again with “The Endless,” and while it’s likely not the movie that’ll really break them out, it once again cements their promise.
This time, Benson and Moorhead not only write and direct the movie, but also star, playing Justin and Aaron Smith, a pair of brothers who were adopted after their mother’s death by a ‘UFO death cult,’ only to leave the group ten years earlier. Justin, in particular, has struggled to adjust to the ‘real world,’ where the pair barely scrape by working as cleaners. His longing for the certainty of their old life only increases when they receive a videotape, a goodbye from one of their former friends, and Justin’s one-time crush, Anna (Callie Hernandez, of “La La Land” and “Alien: Covenant”), ahead of the cult’s coming ‘ascension.’
In the hope of finally quelling his brother’s doubts, Aaron agrees to return to the place they once lived for a visit, privately expecting that the group will have committed mass suicide in the meantime. But when they arrive, they find the group alive and well, curiously unaged. There’s certainly weirdness going on — birds looping in the sky, a mysterious meth-head marching up and down the road nearby, the group’s admission that they worship a creature in the lake. But the group also seems much less sinister than the picture that Aaron’s always painted of them up to and including the fact that the men don’t appear to castrate themselves.
A lot of weirdness goes on from here, but it should be noted that it’s not necessarily a horror movie: it’s more of a Shane Carruth-ish sci-fi weirdfest, though sadly not as accomplished as the auteur. It’s certainly ambitious: there’s an enormous amount going on (including heavy links with the pair’s debut “Resolution,” including the return of some cast members: it’s a sequel in all but name, though you’ll get by fine if you haven’t seen it), and a mash of tones where the Lovecraftian weirdness comes head-to-head with some broad-ish comedy.
It’s ambitious stuff, and while credit’s due to Benson & Moorhead for trying something of this kind of scope on what can’t have been a hefty budget, the film doesn’t quite work. Those tones clash more than they gel. “Endless” all adds up to a conclusion that can’t quite live up to the promises preceding it, and feels pretty underwhelming as a result. It also doesn’t entirely help that while casting themselves in the leads helped bring it in on budget, they’re definitely less brilliant in front of the camera than they are behind it.
But I’d probably rather watch a failure that swung for the fences than a playing-it-safe success, and there’s more than enough ideas, images and scenes here to make it worthwhile. From an eerie rope-pull to the contents of a mysterious tent, from accomplished lo-fi effects to drone shots, from the emotional ties that the cult hold over the duo to an intriguingly disruptive performance by actress Emily Montague late in the game, it feels like Moorhead and Benson are throwing everything they wanted to try into one movie.
And while that doesn’t necessarily add up to a satisfying whole, it suggests promising things for their next feature. “The Endless” isn’t as fully realized as “Spring,” which remains their finest hour, but it’s clear that Benson and Moorhead have a truly great movie in them, and even if this isn’t it, it seems only a matter of time before we see it. [C+]
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