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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