'The Endless' is a low budget film, but with high auteur aspirations. The actors/film-makers have made a sequel (in a trilogy?), some of whose characters are familiar from a previous film.
The premise of the film is that Justin and his brother Aaron, whose life Justin runs, eke out a pretty miserable routine - or daily loop - of boring work and no relationships. When they receive a strange video tape, they return to visit a cult that rescued them as children. Strange markers that look like stony spikes mark the circumference of the cult - and of something terrifying behind it. As the brothers explore the area and forge relationships with cult members that seem not to have aged at all in 10 years, Aaron wants to stay to escape his brother's control, but Justin finds out that the markers contain 'bubbles' where time runs in a loop, some a few seconds, one (you guessed it!) 10 years. The bubbles don't repeat over and over exactly, but start with the same initial condition and end with the same final condition: death of those within when the loop restarts. In-between there is at least the appearance of free will.
These bubbles were created by an entity we never get to see, but which is ever-present: in drawings by an escapee from an insane asylum; in ancient Native American monoliths (so it's been around for a long time!); in equations written out by the physicist-leader of the cult (who claims there is no leader). The entity is the audience for the sad shows put on by the unfortunate bubble prisoners, and goads them along with movies, photos and sound recordings that fall from the sky or emerge from the lake.
The movie gets 7/10, even though production values are low-budget and the acting varies in quality, for several reasons: it keeps the audience on its toes; it spends a lot of time on good character development, including the brother's ambiguous relationship, but also with cult members and a few others trapped in time bubbles; it can be seen again, and hints in various parts of the movie will become apparent on second viewing; it bucks the annoying trend of constant action without reflection in most current movies. (Well, OK, it's an indie film, so it better!)
Also, I usually find electronic scores annoying, but this one is subdued and menacing at the same time, and should hold up pretty well.
I hear there will be a 'part 3' at some point, and look forward to it with interest. I do hope the auteurs stay away from a banal revelation like the spider creature at the end of 'It,' or the human batteries in 'The Matrix.'
The premise of the film is that Justin and his brother Aaron, whose life Justin runs, eke out a pretty miserable routine - or daily loop - of boring work and no relationships. When they receive a strange video tape, they return to visit a cult that rescued them as children. Strange markers that look like stony spikes mark the circumference of the cult - and of something terrifying behind it. As the brothers explore the area and forge relationships with cult members that seem not to have aged at all in 10 years, Aaron wants to stay to escape his brother's control, but Justin finds out that the markers contain 'bubbles' where time runs in a loop, some a few seconds, one (you guessed it!) 10 years. The bubbles don't repeat over and over exactly, but start with the same initial condition and end with the same final condition: death of those within when the loop restarts. In-between there is at least the appearance of free will.
These bubbles were created by an entity we never get to see, but which is ever-present: in drawings by an escapee from an insane asylum; in ancient Native American monoliths (so it's been around for a long time!); in equations written out by the physicist-leader of the cult (who claims there is no leader). The entity is the audience for the sad shows put on by the unfortunate bubble prisoners, and goads them along with movies, photos and sound recordings that fall from the sky or emerge from the lake.
The movie gets 7/10, even though production values are low-budget and the acting varies in quality, for several reasons: it keeps the audience on its toes; it spends a lot of time on good character development, including the brother's ambiguous relationship, but also with cult members and a few others trapped in time bubbles; it can be seen again, and hints in various parts of the movie will become apparent on second viewing; it bucks the annoying trend of constant action without reflection in most current movies. (Well, OK, it's an indie film, so it better!)
Also, I usually find electronic scores annoying, but this one is subdued and menacing at the same time, and should hold up pretty well.
I hear there will be a 'part 3' at some point, and look forward to it with interest. I do hope the auteurs stay away from a banal revelation like the spider creature at the end of 'It,' or the human batteries in 'The Matrix.'