Denouement Renouement

Tag: 2017

  • Hooptober 12: It Comes at Night (2017)

    Film #26 — 2/2 Post-Apocalyptic Films

    By C. Ramsay

    Opening in medias res, with high stakes and no information other than what is directly visible to the audience, It Comes at Night is a drawling, shambling, slow burn of a character study. Surprisingly relevant to the hyper paranoia that has festered since the arrival of COVID-19, the film seeks to escalate by exploiting the uncertainties of the audience and characters alike. We never get much context around what’s happening or why, we only get a vague idea: a disease has ravaged the world, or at least the microcosm accessible to us, and we are introduced to the aftermath through two families and their experiences.

    Bruegel the Elder’s The Triumph of Death is featured at the beginning of the film, a painting depicting a browning landscape, charred by fire and littered with bodies and their useless earthly possessions. Legions of undead have come to lay waste to people of all classes and backgrounds, whether they accept their fate or vie against it. As with the families we meet, there are options for how they can respond to the threat of death, but there is ultimately no real chance of escape.

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  • Hooptober 12: The Endless (2017)

    Film #23 — 2/3 Cult or Conspiracy Films

    By C. Ramsay

    Centered on two brothers struggling to make a living for themselves, considering instead a return to the cult they escaped from a few years prior, The Endless is most interested in the differences between found and blood family, and in the circumstances that amount to the sincerest forms of human connection.

    Being built around Lovecraftian inspiration, once the film finds its footing it really digs itself into its style, though it takes a bit of time to get there. The beginning brings in a touch of mockumentary approach that’s only in play for a couple of scenes and never really comes back, remaining mostly, but not quite, forgettable. The camerawork during the first half hour is also a bit off-putting and feels quite amateur, with lots of shaky cam and quick cuts being completely mismatched with the pace the film is actually moving at. Similarly, Aaron and Justin, the brothers, are not very well acted at first, though once they arrive back at the camp they’d previously fled, the camerawork and acting fit in much better. Surrounded by little absurdities that seem accepted by everyone without question except for the brothers, the initial mismatched pacing retroactively works better to underscore Aaron and Justin as being displaced in the world outside of the cult, as well as their unease within it. Realistically, the biggest and most consistent issue throughout the film is that everything is tinted, slightly desaturated, and tilt shifted the entire time under some misguided attempt to visually force the viewer into feeling what already comes naturally from the rest of the existing components.

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