"Friends tell each other how they feel with relative frequency. Siblings wait for a more convenient time, like their deathbeds." —Unknown
The Endless is a 2017 horror film directed by and starring Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. The story follows Justin and his brother Aaron, two former members of a UFO death cult they belonged to as kids. One day, the now adult brothers, who are struggling to make friends or find good jobs since leaving the cult, receive an old video from Camp Arcadia, the cult's commune in which they lived a decade ago. Justin reluctantly indulges Aaron's desire to return to the commune one last time for the sake of closure, only to find themselves embroiled in increasingly bizarre happenings in the area.
The film is a Stealth Sequel to Resolution, so beware spoilers for that film.
This film depicts the following tropes:
- Age-Gap Romance: Anna and Aaron; It's implied throughout the film that Anna has had feelings for Aaron since his initial stay in Camp Arcadia, though nothing came of it until he returned 10 years later. That being said, Anna is Older Than She Looks, being around 40 years old by the time they return, if not older depending on how long the Camp Arcadia members have been in the loop, and has known Aaron since he was a child while she was already an adult at the time. Justin even speculates that she might be a pedophile, which Aaron tries to refute because, in his opinion, women cannot be pedophiles.
- An Aesop: Make your own choices or forever live in servitude.
- And I Must Scream: Everyone trapped in the Loop is doomed to a nightmarish existence from which they can never escape. All their efforts to break the Loop or kill themselves are useless, and if they don't kill themselves, the entity controlling the Loop is happy enough to do it for them, much more painfully. Special mention goes to the guy in the tent, whose entire existence lasts five seconds, and ends in his painful death by exploding skull. And judging by the phonograph in his tent, he's been stuck in the loop for about a century.
- Apocalypse Cult: Camp Arcadia, the people of the commune that Justin and Aaron used to be in.
- Arc Symbol: Circles, representing the infinite. The three moons are circles in the sky. Each "bubble" is a circle on the ground. Shitty Carl draws circles for bubbles and wayposts. We see circular clocks, a compass, and records. All of the cultists stand in a circle before being killed and restarted, just before which, a rope is tossed down at them, which lands in a circle.
- Artistic License – Space: The third moon goes from half-moon to full-moon within a day.
- Bad Moon Rising: One of the more blatant signs of weirdness is the fact that there's more than one moon in the sky above the cult compound. It's a sign that the end of that particular time loop is coming, and once three full moons are out escape becomes impossible.
- Bait-and-Switch: In the end, Aaron and Justin slam into the mirrored barrier to the outside world, and the film cuts to black, implying that they crashed and were prevented from escaping. Then we cut outside, and after a few moments, their car races by, revealing that actually escaped.
- Bittersweet Ending: Justin and Aaron make it out of the commune's time dome before the entity can kill and eternally trap them, with the implication being that Justin will work to be a better man and his relationship with Aaron will improve in the process. However, every other character shown in the movie is doomed to an eternity of endless and undeserved suffering under the entity's control. As they escape, the Camp Arcadia members wistfully watch them go before returning to their routines.
- Black Comedy: Shitty Carl shoots himself after the camera pans away - only to burst out of his cabin yelling "Damn it!" seconds later.
- Broken Bird: Jennifer, Mike's wife. When Justin meets her, she's in tears because the camp won't let her sleep, and she implies that Hal manipulated her into trapping herself in the time loop by promising to help her look for Mike, meaning she'll never see him, or their child, ever again. Whatever the case, she's completely broken by the experience.
- The Cameo: Peter Cilella and Vinny Curran reprise their roles as Mike and Chris toward the end, though they aren't the main characters here.
- Central Theme: Control. Both in the entity's desire to control everything in its area, their lives, deaths and time, and how Justin's Control Freak tendencies, especially towards Aaron, damages his relationships and especially how it's a strain in his relationship with his brother.
- Chekhov's Gun: At the start of the movie, Aaron gets a reminder from Justin to get a new battery for their car, which he neglects to do. Later on, Justin decides to leave the commune without Aaron but the car won't start because the battery is dead. This leads Justin to discover the time loops.
- Chekhov's Gunman: One of the commune members draws a portrait of a local gun-crazy meth guy. The brothers meet this person later, who turns out to be Chris from Resolution.
- Continuity Cavalcade: The film features a lengthy series of calls back to Resolution:
- Justin meets Mike and Chris in Chris's shack, which looks the same as it did in the first film. Chris is still handcuffed to the mattress and asking for drugs. He also talks about how Mike keeps getting messages from the entity, and they watch yet another recording of their horrible deaths. We see the projector screen set up from the first film, and Mike grabs the baseball bat by the door. Chris tells Justin not to bow down or apologize to the entity, both of which he did at the end of the previous film. Mike ultimately burns down the shack just like it did in the end of Resolution. When Justin leaves, he watches Mike's first encounter play out just like in the first film.
- Mike's wife Jennifer, seen in Resolution's first scene, makes an appearance and is revealed to have followed them to the camp after Mike's disappearance. It's unknown just how long she's been at the camp, as when asked by Justin she only answered that "It's been a few..." However, it's suggested that she's been there a while, as she's already had her baby and left them with her parents to search for Mike.
- We see Byron's trailer in a picture left by the entity. Justin and Aaron later visit it, and Byron has left a note saying he's gone looking for his French students that were discussed in the previous film.
- Aaron smokes the red herb that Byron smoked in the first film and said was growing around the area. We see it in its flower form at Byron's trailer.
- Shitty Carl, mentioned in dialogue in Resolution, is a supporting character in this film.
- A videotape of a scene from Resolution plays, showing when Mike encountered members of the cult during his run. Most of the details of the cult established in this scene, other than its name, are revealed to be lies.
- Cosmic Horror Story: Much more so than Resolution, which only implied the full extent of what was happening.
- Creepy Good: The members of Camp Arcadia aren't bad people; they're just people stuck in a bad situation trying to make the best of it. That said, they don't do a good job of dispelling Justin's suspicions that they're a cult, given how uncomfortable some of their actions are, ranging from being extremely cryptic about what's going on there to Tim implying that he intended to watch Justin and one of the camp members have sex.
- Driven to Suicide: Some people try to escape their time loops this way, while others simply choose suicide as a less painful alternative to the excruciating, Entity-inflicted death waiting at the end of each loop. This is especially true for people in shorter time loops, who face the prospect of death-by-grisly-explosion far more frequently than the camp members. Shitty Carl even shows up alive while his body is still hanging from a ceiling beam.
- E = MC Hammer: Hal has a blackboard with a sophisticated formula on it.
- Eldritch Abomination: Something is clearly present in and around the commune, communicating with its members through photographs and videotapes. Hal theorizes that it's "made of impossible colors," preventing humans from seeing it. In the end, we do see it, and it appears as a massive cloud of explosions, black shards and shadows.
- Eldritch Location: The commune and the surrounding area.
- Faux Affably Evil: For those with particularly long time loops, life in the commune isn't so bad. The Entity never really bothers them or does them any harm. It allows the inhabitants to socialize, hang out, and generally just have a good time. It even sometimes joins in with the fun via playing games with them, such as tug of war. Of course, that would be nice if they all didn't have to die horribly in every reset.
- Gag Haircut: Aaron gives Justin one early on when the latter rants about Aaron leaving the dome light on in the car.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The area of the commune has localized time loops surrounded by a barrier dome. Everyone has their own respective loop, with some being shorter than others. The campsite members have the longest loop at 10 years, followed by Mike and Chris at 1 week, Shitty Carl at 3 hours, and the 1900s man at 5 seconds.
- Hollywood Night: The scene with Justin and Aaron pushing the car until it starts is clearly shot in daylight with a night filter added.
- Literal Metaphor: Aaron says he slept with a girl in the camp, and Justin congratulates him before realizing that Aaron meant he literally slept beside her. When Justin tries to explain that "slept with" usually means sex, Aaron insists that sex isn't sleep, so that doesn't make sense.
- Lovecraft Lite: Played with. Justin and Aaron do escape in the end and move on toward possibly happier times, having put their sibling rivalry behind them. However, everyone already trapped in the Loop - Mike and Chris, Shitty Carl, the cult - really are stuck there, presumably forever.
- Manipulative Bastard: Implied to be the reason why Hal and the other campsite members aren't forthright in telling Justin and Aaron what's going on. Their actions almost seem as though they want the two to become trapped alongside them, with only Tim feeling guilty enough to vaguely advise Aaron to only make the choice to stay if he wants to.
- Meaningful Name: HAL was the name of the Affably Evil A.I. in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- Older Than They Look: The brothers note that everyone in the commune should be about 20 years older than them at least, yet most of them look much younger. This is because they're stuck in a time loop and do not age.
- Perpetual Smiler: The aptly named "Smiling Dave".
- Poor Communication Kills: Much of the drama in this film is based on people not properly explaining themselves. Justin never was clear to Aaron on the problems in the camp, the camp was never clear in explaining what was going on, and the people in the loops aren't generally clear talking about the loops, with the exception of Shitty Carl.
- Poverty Food: Aaron boils a packet of ramen and reminisces about their time at the cult, when they ate real food.
- Race Against the Clock: The brothers are told to make up their minds about whether to stay in the commune by the time the third moon rises. People in shorter time loops repeatedly scramble to kill themselves before each "reset" just to avoid a far more excruciating death at the hands of the Entity.
- Retcon: The details of the cult are changed considerably from the first film, which established it as a UFO cult where everyone goes to sermons and wears Mormon missionary-like uniforms. In this film, it's revealed that Justin was lying about the cult in that original scene in hopes of getting a donation. The lack of uniforms at the camp is never explained.
- Riddle for the Ages:
- It's ambiguous as to just how long Mike's wife Jennifer has been in the camp looking for him. When asked by Justin, she can only answer that "It's been a few...".
- By the time Justin meets up with Resolution's protagonists Mike and Chris, it is clear that they've been trapped in their loop for quite some time, though Mike doesn't give a clear answer as to how long it's been, only saying that it's been many weeks. However, given his wife Jennifer has already had her baby when in Resolution movie, Mike said it was too soon to tell what gender the baby is, it's possible that they have been trapped for several months or even years since Justin recognizes Mike and Mike met Justin's brother Aaron during their original stay at Camp Arcadia.
- Shout-Out:
- H. P. Lovecraft gets a few. Hal's theory that the entity is a being of "impossible colors" is a clear reference to The Colour Out of Space.
- The protagonists receive a mysterious videotape on their doorstep and later have to deal with a time loop. That's a reference to Lost Highway.
- The mysterious post-its Justin finds around the camp are probably a nod to The Machinist.
- Sleep Deprivation: Shitty Carl because he is trapped in a 3-hour loop, can never get a full night's sleep. And then there's the poor man trapped in the five-second loop.
- Social Services Does Not Exist: Zig-zagged. Justin and Aaron have a faceless, offscreen counsellor helping them through their deprogramming from the cult, however in real life if two children escaped a cult and told authorities that suicide and castration were a part of it, the authorities would get involved and go there asking questions. And this would ruin the author's plot because they would likely try to take one of the cult members back to town for questioning, and that would get weird at the edge of the loop, bringing even more attention onto the cult.
- Some Kind of Force Field: The commune and the other domes are enclosed in these, stopping everyone except the unclaimed from leaving.
- Stealth Sequel: While the film stands on its own, it does follow the events of Resolution and features many callbacks to elements from that film.
- Stepford Smiler: The campsite members are strongly implied to be miserable trapped in their loop, but make the best of their inescapable situation, as it's really all they can do.
- Time Loop Fatigue: Most of the inhabitants of the area suffer from this, but special mention goes to the man whose loop is a mere five seconds long.
- The Unreveal: Whatever is on the bottom of the lake is never revealed past a strange shadow, but it deeply terrifies Justin. All we see is his scared reaction to it.
- Unreveal Angle: When Mike shows Justin the video from the hard drive he recovered, we don't get a look at the screen and only hear screams and see Justin's horrified reaction.
- The Voice: The counselor at deprogramming is only seen, not heard.
- Weird Moon: Two of them appear in the sky over the commune, with a third one waxing that portends something very bad.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: The cult leader is all for living in the time loops since it means never aging and never dying. Of course, that's only if the entity isn't displeased with you and makes your loop a living hell. Even some members of the cult show signs of disliking this method of immortality, but once you're in a loop, you can never, ever leave.
- Worst News Judgment Ever: It is shown that Justin and Aaron's leaving the cult made full front-page newspaper headlines and news stories. In real life, small-scale cult activity generally only makes the news when there's a mass suicide or murder.
