☆ ☆ ☆
The Endless (2017) – J. Benson & A.
Moorhead
What have we here? There’s an outsider/weird American folk
horror/stoner vibe to the proceedings (set in rural southern California) that usually
garner praise from these quarters except
for the fact that the acting by the leads (also the directors) is sub-par and also
because the film dissolves into some sort of self-reflexive in-joke that goes
nowhere. But aside from that I really
dug the weirdness: two guys who were raised
in a cult (but then escaped as young adults) return, because of a VHS tape and
then nostalgia. Of course, the prophecies
of the cult (three moons etc.) start to come true – or maybe it’s the drugs
everyone is doing? A lot of this is just cult members talking but there is a steady
sense that something is going to happen (sex, horror, both?). Someone (Glenn
Kenny?) mentioned Annihilation (2018) and there’s the same fried feeling here
(and invisible god/monster?) and the same eventual total collapse of logic. But I get the feeling that some viewers don’t
quite care whether plots hold up (see the straight-to-video horror genre, for
example) and, for them, any WTF is good WTF. I guess I prefer it when there’s
actually a pay-off. But yeah, this has
the vibe.
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